The FCC Media Bureau extended the comment and reply deadlines for petitions for reconsideration for the elimination of the UHF discount until Jan. 10 and Jan. 23, respectively, said a public notice in Wednesday's Daily Digest. Comments had been due Dec. 27, replies Jan. 6. The extension was requested by Free Press, Common Cause, Media Alliance and the United Church of Christ's Office of Communication because the original dates conflict with the holidays and the FCC's leadership transition.

Gracenote ownership will change hands for the third time in eight years when Tribune Media completes the sale of the audio, video and sports metadata supplier to Nielsen for $560 million cash in Q1. Selling Gracenote to Nielsen will enable Tribune to focus on its “core” TV and entertainment business, Tribune announced Tuesday. By bringing Gracenote into the fold, Nielsen “will have the ability to provide clients with deeper analytics on consumer behavior and offer an unprecedented view of audience engagement from discovery to consumption,” Nielsen said Tuesday in a statement. In 2008, Sony acquired Gracenote for $260 million and once viewed the company as central to plans to “enhance and accelerate” its digital content. But Sony sold Gracenote to Tribune in 2014 for $170 million as part of a restructuring that later included the spin-offs of its TV and Vaio PC businesses.

Noncommercial educational broadcast stations don't have to file biennial ownership reports (Form 323-E) in 2017 until December, the FCC Media Bureau said in a public notice. A January 2016 FCC ruling changed the rolling schedule for noncommercial stations into a uniform December deadline, and the PN waives the rolling deadlines for the preceding months so stations won't have the burden of filing twice, the PN said. “It is in the public interest to relieve filers of the burden of filing biennial ownership reports on the existing Form 323-E within the year prior to the new December 1 filing requirement.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit should decide if the FCC was arbitrary and capricious in not extending cable procurement rules to other industries, said the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council and the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters in a statement of issues filed (in Pacer) Friday. The MMTC/NABOB's filing is part of the appeal of the FCC quadrennial media ownership review order, and the court will consider their challenges to the order alongside appeals from Prometheus Radio Project and News Media Alliance. Though the case is set to be decided in the D.C. Circuit, all parties in the case have asked that it be moved to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where previous media ownership cases were decided. An unopposed motion to transfer the case was filed by Prometheus last week.

The FCC Incentive Auction Task Force released an online tutorial for broadcast and other entities that will be receiving bid payments after the incentive auction, or reimbursement for expenses incurred in the repacking, said a public notice Monday. The tutorial explains how to update entries in the Commission Registration System (CORES) so the FCC has the correct contact information for banking and other questions. Bid winners and those receiving reimbursements are required to designate specific FCC user names to access specific FCC registration numbers, enter valid email addresses and establish password security information, the PN said. “All entities doing business with the FCC are required to update their information in CORES.”

Tegna, which has been liquidating some assets, said it sold its ShopLocal digital marketer, which does business as Cofactor. The buyer of the business that connects shoppers including those online across channels and devices was digital marketing solutions firm Liquidus, the broadcaster announced Thursday. Tegna a few months ago said it's spinning off Cars.com. Analysts said then it may sell CareerBuilder (see 1609070036), and last year it said it sold PointRoll (see 1511120054) and was selling its headquarters (see 1507210074).

Two Cox Radio stations and other similarly situated FCC licensees got staff leeway to not post in their online public files some documents from past license renewal cycles when there was no opposition to the renewals. Those broadcasters can make their quarterly issues/program lists and annual equal employment opportunity reports from previous renewals that remain pending available to the public at their main studio instead of uploading them. Documents from the current license renewal term aren't exempt, and the past renewals must be deferred for reasons not related to the obligations to air content responsive to the community, comply with EEO rules or keep documents relating to those two areas. Cox Radio said (see 1612150071) "uploading thousands of pages of quarterly issues/programs lists and annual EEO reports covering up to a twenty-year period will be burdensome to the Stations and will not provide any benefit to the public," said a Media Bureau order published in Friday's Daily Digest, and docket 14-127. "Commission action on the renewal applications has been delayed, according to Cox Radio, due to the Commission’s continued examination of its newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership rule."

The FCC should grant a waiver to Cox Radio that would allow two Georgia radio stations to omit from their online public file issues/program lists and equal employment opportunity reports from prior license renewal terms, said a Dec. 9 letter posted this Wednesday in docket 14-127. The FMs are WALR Palmetto and WSRV Gainesville, Cox said. Uploading the old reports would be a burden on staff, and their time would be better spent “devoted to the public interest,” the company said. If the waiver is granted, the broadcaster said it will maintain the items from prior terms in a paper file.

The FCC is seeking comment on a petition asking it to revise equal employment opportunity rules to allow broadcasters to use internet recruitment sites “coupled with their on-air advertising” to satisfy job outreach requirements. The petition was filed Monday by Sun Valley Radio and Canyon Media. Comments are due Jan. 30, replies Feb. 14.

The American TV Alliance, AT&T and Dish Network have “either misunderstood or ignored the very clear message” in the broadcast petition asking the FCC to approve the transition to ATSC 3.0, Sinclair told Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake in a meeting Friday, said an FCC ex parte filing posted Wednesday in docket 16-142. The petition didn't ask the FCC to require multichannel video programming distributors to carry any ATSC 3.0 signals, said Sinclair. Pay-TV transmission equipment and set-top boxes are incapable of carrying ATSC 3.0 signals, it said. “Broadcasters have no interest in delaying implementation of Next Generation TV until MVPDs are technically capable of carrying it,” said Sinclair. “Therefore, broadcasters are prepared to deliver their program streams to MVPDs in the current standard (ATSC 1.0), so as to maintain the operational status quo.” Because FCC approval wouldn't change what MVPDs are carrying, “there should be no change to the underlying carriage arrangement, be it must carry or retransmission consent,” the company said. It isn't in broadcasters' interest to demand carriage of programming streams that MVPDs can't carry, the broadcaster said. “In light of this, we can only conclude that ATVA, AT&T and DISH persist in their ruse to delay implementation of Next Generation TV because they see it as a competitive threat to their service offerings.” The FCC should not “broaden this very narrow, technical rulemaking into a comprehensive inquiry on competitive industry business relationships,” Sinclair said. “Rather, the FCC should limit the NPRM to questions about Next Generation TV technology and its broadcast implementation plan.” ATVA and AT&T didn't comment Wednesday. AT&T and Dish "appear to be seeking to further their own interests by asking the Commission to dictate terms and conditions of future retransmission consent agreements" in the guise of airing their concerns about ATSC 3.0, NAB said in a separate letter. "AT&T is a company with a market capitalization of more than $250 billion. The notion that any local broadcaster could force AT&T to do anything is comical." The pay-TV concern over ATSC 3.0 is "nothing more than an effort to accomplish in this proceeding what they could not accomplish in the Commission’s good faith negotiation proceeding earlier this year," NAB said. "They are asking the Commission to intervene in retransmission consent negotiations for their narrow, self-interested benefit."