NAB lawyers met with Media Bureau front office and other staff to press for FCC ownership deregulation. "Expeditiously reinstate the UHF discount," which was "arbitrary and capricious for the Commission to eliminate," representatives including General Counsel Rick Kaplan told acting bureau Chief Michelle Carey and others, according to the association. That discount may soon be brought back (see 1701110067). The broadcaster group also sought grant of its petition for reconsideration of media ownership rules (see 1702060053). "Remove the eight-voices test from the local TV rule and reform the top four prohibition by allowing a single entity to own up to two of the top four-ranked stations in a local market; reverse the joint sales agreement attribution and shared services agreement disclosure requirements; and eliminate the newspaper/broadcast and radio/television cross-ownership rules," NAB said in a filing posted Thursday in docket 14-50. Others oppose such deregulation (see 1701260018).

The catalog of potential costs that will be incurred by broadcasters in the repacking has been finalized, said the FCC Incentive Auction Task Force and Media Bureau in a public notice Thursday. The catalog of reimbursable expenses is largely unchanged from the version originally proposed by the FCC, though it will include prices annually indexed to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Producer Price Index, the PN said. The IATF and Media Bureau rejected several requests from broadcasters for additional expenses to be added to the catalog. “We do not believe it is necessary to add these specific items to the Catalog because, to the extent that stations reasonably incur such expenses, they can be claimed within the appropriate cost categories or on the catch-all 'Other' line in the Reimbursement Form that is available for expenses not listed within a particular category,” the PN said. The agency also rejected requests for the possible prices of items to be increased, the PN said. Reimbursements for costs that are over the catalog's predictions are still reimbursable, but broadcasters and multichannel video programming distributors will have to justify why they went over, the PN said.

The FCC should release the software tools and data that it developed to assign channels and assign stations to repacking phases to make it easier to identify those stations that could make the repacking effort more difficult, said OTA Broadcasting in informal comments filed in docket 12-268. “Free market forces also can be harnessed to simply eliminate some stations that present a bottleneck or that constitute part of a linked station set,” the company said. “These voluntary free market actions have the potential to both give winning carriers expedited access to their spectrum and afford broadcasters a longer period to construct their new facilities -- truly a win-win.”

Fox Television Stations will receive $350 million in proceeds from the incentive auction, and Tribune Media will receive $190 million, they said in news releases Wednesday. “This spectrum sale isn't expected to lead to any material change in the operations or results for Fox Television Stations or for any of the affected television markets,” the Fox release said, a statement echoed by Tribune Media. Fox expects to receive the proceeds in 2017, Tribune in the second half of 2017, they said. “We are starting to see that the public companies did not 'cash out' at significantly 'low prices' -- which had been an initial concern aired by some investors,” said Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker in an email to investors. “Given the ultimate MHz Pop valuation of the reverse auction (which we determined to be $0.31), we should NOT be surprised that the public companies might not get the bulk of these proceeds.” Gray Television announced a yield of $90.8 million Tuesday (see 1702070034).

LG Electronics and its Zenith subsidiary don't support a tuner mandate for the transition to ATSC 3.0, spokesman John Taylor told us. LG and Zenith back the recommendations in the petition for ATSC 3.0 rulemaking that CTA, NAB and others filed April 13 at the FCC (see 1604130065), urging that ATSC 3.0 tuners in receivers not be required because the evolution to the next-generation TV standard should be market-driven and based on voluntary standards, Taylor said. It’s too soon to say whether LG and Zenith will file comments if commissioners approve at their Feb. 23 meeting the NPRM on ATSC 3.0 that the agency released publicly as a draft item last week (see report in the Feb. 3 issue of this publication). In the draft, the FCC said it tentatively agrees with the argument that an ATSC 3.0 tuner requirement won't be needed, but that it would seek comment anyway on whether a market-driven approach would be enough. LG and Zenith in 2002 supported the FCC mandate that DTV tuners be included in analog sets on the grounds that a tuner requirement was the best way “to provide consumers with cost-effective products while achieving the national policy objectives” of the DTV transition. “Times have changed,” Taylor said of LG/Zenith’s endorsement of a market-driven approach for ATSC 3.0.

Discovery in FCC license renewal proceeding on Entercom's KDND(FM) Sacramento is on hold pending the company's surrender of the license, Chief Administrative Law Judge Richard Sippel said in an order Monday. Entercom announced last week it will turn in its license for KDND Wednesday to facilitate its proposed combination with CBS Radio (see 1702020070). KDND’s license renewal had been opposed by public interest group Media Action Center and designated for hearing because of a 2007 radio contest that led to the death of a listener. Sippel also ordered a prehearing conference on Thursday to consider further proceedings.

The ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard will enhance broadcasting, said Raycom CEO Pat LaPlatney in a release praising FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s circulation of an NPRM on authorizing a transition plan (see 1702030075). “We can’t fall behind on technology or our ability to provide the very best experience and services to our viewers who count on us every day.”

Broadcasters and trade associations don’t think much of procedural arguments (see 1701260018) against NAB’s reconsideration petition against the FCC ownership quadrennial review order, they said in reply comments posted Monday in docket 14-50. The United Church of Christ and the American Cable Association are raising invalid arguments, said NAB, News Media Alliance, Nexstar, Sinclair and others. The opponents “misapprehend” the standards for recon petitions by insisting that NAB and other broadcasters have to identify a material error or omission in the rules for them to be reconsidered, NAB said. The order’s conclusion that programming competition from pay-TV carriers and over-the-top providers isn’t relevant to broadcast ownership rules is a “material error,” Nexstar said. “It is becoming increasingly difficult to quantify the number of times that the Commission has acknowledged that the newspaper/radio rule does not demonstrably serve any of the agency’s three identified policy goals but has nonetheless retained the restriction, with little or no empirical support,” said Bonneville International and Scranton Times LP jointly. “The Commission’s insufficient consideration of these changed circumstances is arbitrary and capricious, and merits reconsideration,” said NMA. The order “not only unjustifiably retains certain antiquated broadcast ownership rules without properly considering today’s competitive realities, but in some cases makes the rules more stringent without any legitimate evidentiary basis for doing so,” said Sinclair.

Entercom will turn in its license for KDND(FM) Sacramento to facilitate its proposed combination with CBS Radio (see 1702020070), Entercom said in a letter to FCC Media Bureau Audio Division Head Peter Doyle Friday. KDND’s license was embroiled in a hearing process stemming from the death of a listener in a 2007 radio contest. Consumer group Media Action Center argued the incident and Entercom's conduct during it made it unfit to hold KDND's license (see 1702010054). "This is a huge victory for the Public Interest, and I am grateful that due to the loss of this key station, FCC compliance issues will be on the minds of this and every broadcaster moving forward,” said Media Action Center Director Sue Wilson. To receive FCC approval for the deal, Entercom would have had to divest four stations in the Sacramento area, Wilson said. “Only now that the FCC must approve the company's pending merger with CBS Radio is this mega corporation doing the ‘right thing.’” Entercom didn't comment. Though that broadcaster said in the letter to Doyle that it would inform the administrative law judge it's no longer seeking renewal of the KDND license, Wilson said the ALJ could still rule on enlarging the case to include other Entercom stations, which the Enforcement Bureau opposed. KDND will cease operating and turn in its license on Wednesday, said the letter.

The FCC published its rules for progress reports on stations' post-incentive auction transition in the Federal Register Thursday, the same day as the rules' effective date. The reports will include details of relocation expenses and how reimbursement funds are spent (see 1701260033).