Equal time rules for broadcast political advertisements could one day be tested by candidates campaigning on social media, said Media Bureau Assistant Division Chief Robert Baker on the FCC podcast. Traditionally, candidates running write-in campaigns have been considered eligible for equal time on stations if they can demonstrate they are campaigning, Baker said: “They're giving speeches, they've got campaign materials, they have campaign headquarters and the kinds of things that are indicative of being a candidate.” The rise of digital and social media campaigning is complicating that determination, he said. “We just had a presidential election campaign where the successful person running for president used social media in ways that will indicate, I think, for a lot of people are a much different way of campaigning." Policy remains unchanged, but “one of these days it's going to be tested,” he said. Baker’s role at the FCC is “not to be a cop and not to punish people if at all possible to avoid,” he said. In his 25 years heading the bureau’s political ad efforts, his office has gone from 15 lawyers to two and now issues far fewer complaints than his predecessor. Baker is “there to help” and lawyers and broadcasters trust they can ask questions without getting in trouble, he said. “They know I don't write things down,” Baker said. “We've eliminated a couple thousand potential disputes and those disputes are inefficient for many reasons,” he said. “Certainly, they waste the resources of the FCC.”

Total registered attendance for the two-day NAB Show New York was 15,097, a 6.1 percent increase over that of the 2017 event, said NAB Friday. Last week's show attracted more than 300 exhibitors, including 67 companies that exhibited for the first time, it said. The 2019 event is set for Oct. 16-17.

The FCC Wireless and Media bureaus seek comment on procedures for Auction 100, an FY 2019 auction of 13 FM translator construction permits, said a public notice in Friday’s Daily Digest. The auction is open only to entities that had mutually exclusive permit applications in a previous translator window. Comments are due Nov. 15, replies Nov. 28, the PN said.

The FCC shouldn’t create a protected contour beyond which FM translator stations are allowed to interfere with full-power stations, said NPR in a meeting Tuesday with Audio Division Chief Albert Shuldiner and Media Bureau staff. NPR recommended “relying on engineering criteria in addressing interference concerns at the FM translator station application stage,” said a filing posted Friday in docket 18-119. The post-incentive auction repack will cause “significant disruption” to public radio, it said. The agency should maximize reimbursement payouts to radio, cover project management costs, and do away with “impractical and unnecessary” proposals for graduated reimbursement, it said.

Though anticipated deployment of ATSC 3.0 on a national scale was the talk of NAB Show New York (see 1810170047), the standard is “not part of the conversation” among investors, said an analyst there Thursday. “I’m talking to people who live and die by their spreadsheets,” and 3.0 now is a “blank sell,” said Marci Ryvicker, Wolfe Research's new managing director (see 1810120003) and self-described “mouthpiece for Wall Street.” Investors she works with typically “plug numbers” into their spreadsheets, “and out pops a value,” said the former Wells Fargo managing director. “Right now, what we’re putting in for ATSC 3.0 is nothing.” She knows "there’s going to be a value. I have no idea what that value is, so we’re sort of waiting.” Many on Wall Street will be “waiting to see how the TV industry is transformed” as the result of 3.0, said Ryvicker. “There’s a lot of hope that this is going to transform an industry” that many there think “is dying,” she said. “There’s a lot of life that can be breathed into the industry.” Ryvicker’s big 3.0 worry is that “by the time this is out, and we’re using it, have we moved on to some other technology?" She also thinks 3.0 technology “could be awesome, but if the content isn’t there, it doesn’t matter.”

Ion, licensee of WUPX-TV Morehead, Kentucky, wants to amend the DTV table of allotments to delete Channel 21 at Morehead and substitute Channel 21 at Richmond, Kentucky, said an NPRM Thursday. Comments will be due 15 days, replies 25 days, after Federal Register publication.

The FCC Media Bureau ordered Alaska Educational Radio System to pay $8,000 for discontinuing operations of FM translators K223BJ Eagle River and K283AZ Anchorage, said a forfeiture order Thursday. A separate order canceled a $20,000 AERS notice of apparent liability for a forfeiture in response to the broadcaster's surrender of its license for KABN(FM) Kasilof. Forfeiture was in response to AERS seemingly operating KABN multiple times outside licensed parameters and discontinuing station operations without authority, said the bureau.

Scripps hopes to close before year's end on a $150 million cash purchase of digital audio technology company Triton, it said Wednesday. It said Triton, which is used in streaming music and podcasting applications, gives it a bigger footprint as it looks to expand its digital audio play. Scripps CEO Adam Symson said TV station acquisition is still its top merger-and-acquisitions priority.

The FCC Media Bureau should grant a 26-day extension to Nov. 12 on applications for review of Media Bureau approval of four market modification requests for Franklin, Georgia, said a motion in docket 18-159 Monday from Hearst Television, Nexstar and Meredith. They own stations in South Carolina and North Carolina serving that market. The broadcasters want the extension because another recently approved market modification request -- for Hart County, Georgia -- is “substantially similar,” they said: Since applications for review for all the market modifications are likely to involve the same arguments, “extending the deadline by which the Franklin County Application for Review is due to the same date” as for Hart County AFR “would serve the interests of administrative efficiency and economy.”

The FCC Enforcement Bureau started a proceeding to decide whether to revoke the broadcast license held by Missouri religious nonprofit Ministerios El Jordan. A hearing designation order in Friday's Daily Digest said "there are substantial and material questions" about whether MEL made misrepresentations on applications for its low-power FM KEJM-LP Carthage, Missouri; noncitizens owned more than a fifth of MEJ; MEJ didn't maintain the accuracy and completeness of information in a pending captioned application for modification of KEJM's technical facilities; and MEJ didn't respond to requests for information. MEJ didn't comment Friday.