The filing windows allowing AM stations to buy and relocate FM translators were “a resounding success,” said FCC Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake in a blog post Wednesday. The second of those windows closed Monday (see 1610250061). The first window, open only to smaller AM stations, led to 671 relocation applications filed, and so far, over 90 percent have been granted, Lake said. The second window, for all AM stations, led to 420 applications, with 265 OK'd, Lake said. “A substantial majority of the licensees participating in the windows chose to acquire the relocating translators, thereby ensuring a permanent place for their programming on the FM dial,” he wrote.

With its quadrennial review media ownership order, the FCC is providing “an impressive imitation of an ostrich with its head in the sand,” said NAB Senior Deputy General Counsel Jerianne Timmerman in a blog post Tuesday. The quadrennial review order was published in the Federal Register Tuesday (see 1611010027). “The FCC again asserted that 'non-broadcast video programming distributors' are not meaningful competitors in local TV markets, virtually ignoring a host of 20th and 21st century technologies (including cable, satellite, mobile devices and the internet) to retain its local TV ownership restriction,” Timmerman said. By maintaining the newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership (NBCO) ban, “the FCC essentially concluded that little or nothing of import has changed in the news industry and the marketplace position of print newspapers and broadcast stations for the past 41 years -- a nonsensical position on its face,” Timmerman said. She criticized the NBCO rule as out of date and arbitrary, since it only applies to papers “published” four or more days a week. “It borders on the absurd to contend that the viewpoint diversity concerns supposedly sufficient to ban the common ownership of a station and a newspaper publishing a print edition four days a week magically disappear when the newspaper publishes online every day but publishes in print only three days a week,” said Timmerman. Though the FCC touted the order as slightly relaxing the NBCO ban by providing a waiver process, that addition provides minimal change, Timmerman said. “The exception for failed/failing outlets, and the new waiver standard for newspaper/broadcast combinations not 'unduly harm[ing] viewpoint diversity,' fail to go beyond pre-existing waiver opportunities for broadcasters and newspaper owners,” she said. “The FCC has done nothing substantive here.” The agency didn't comment.

With winter weather coming and various business agreements on hold, creating uncertainty, Marquee Broadcasting is asking the FCC to approve its buy of Nexstar's KREG-TV Glenwood Springs, Colorado, separately from consideration of Nexstar buying Media General (see 1609220035). In a filing Friday in docket 16-57, the company recapped a phone call between President Patricia Lane and Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake, during which she said the KREG purchase agreement is separate from and not contingent on Nexstar/Media General, and Marquee has only a limited time to access the station's tower and transmitter before heavy snowfall makes it inaccessible. Marquee also signed two long-term agreements and paid monthly rents in recent weeks -- steps it would have preferred to take after the assignment and transfer of license is complete, but then the station likely would have gone dark until late spring, the company said. Marquee said on the close of the acquisition it plans to convert the station from a satellite station to a stand-alone operation and change programming.

The FCC Media Bureau reached a $100,000 settlement with broadcast licensee Brian Dodge, who used assumed names and applications filled out in the names of family members to control numerous FM translators, AM, FM and low-power FM stations, said a consent decree released Thursday. “Due to a variety of factors, including the number of factual issues and the passage of time (with intervening deaths of certain persons who were named as principals of some applicants), a hearing would be lengthy and complex and would require a significant commitment of Commission resources,” the consent decree said. Dodge has been filing applications under false identities for stations mostly in the Northeast since 1982, said the Media Bureau. “Over most of that history, those applications and the radio station operations arising from various granted applications have been under a cloud of unanswered questions about whether the applications were factually accurate,” the consent decree said. “FCC enforcement action was inhibited by uncertainty as to which applicants might be secretly controlled by Dodge and Dodge's refusal to provide information to the FCC,” the Media Bureau said. Under the consent decree, Dodge will receive “conditional, short-term” license renewals for his FM translator stations, the grant of three pending assignment applications for those stations, and another license renewal. In exchange, he will have to pay the $100,000 settlement, have the licenses of two LPFM stations and an AM station canceled, and two petitions of reconsideration for FM applications dismissed, the decree said.

The European Broadcasting Union was one of three entities to recently join the UHD Alliance, the alliance told the FTC and Attorney General Loretta Lynch in Sept. 28 written notifications, said a notice in Wednesday’s Federal Register by DOJ’s Antitrust Division. Part of the alliance's stated mission is to broaden its compliance and logo programs in high dynamic range and other performance attributes to include broadcasters (see 1509130002). Others joining the alliance were Analogix Semiconductor and Pixelworks, the notice said. The notifications were required to extend antitrust protections to UHD Alliance members under the 1993 National Cooperative Research and Production Act, it said.

Online and digital local advertising will exceed local print media advertising for the first time in 2018, said a BIA/Kelsey news release. “A range of factors will drive local ad revenues higher in 2017 and through the end of the next year,” said BIA/Kelsey Chief Economist Mark Fratrik. He credited “an improving U.S. economy, increased spending by national brands in local media channels, extraordinary growth in mobile and social advertising, and the continued expansion and selection of online/digital advertising platforms.” The forecast projects local ad revenue to rise 2.4 percent to $148.8 billion in 2017.

WJW-TV, Tribune Media's local Fox affiliate in Cleveland, planned Wednesday to run the first live ATSC 3.0 broadcast of a major professional sporting event, beaming Game 2 of the World Series between the Cleveland Indians and Chicago Cubs from Cleveland's Progressive Field, said NAB and several technology partners in the experiment, including LG Electronics and GatesAir, in a Wednesday announcement. WJW has played host to ATSC 3.0 field trials in Cleveland since last year (see 1507130007). LG had two prototype receivers in Cleveland to receive the ATSC 3.0 World Series broadcast as a simulcast of the Fox network HD feed, spokesman John Taylor told us Wednesday. LG planned to have a 65-inch OLED TV at Progressive Field and a 55-inch set at WJW headquarters to showcase the ATSC 3.0 broadcast, he said. Both TVs have real ATSC 3.0 reception chips built into the sets, he said. LG in the field trials used the Futurecast modulation system to demo over-the-air reception last year to stationary TV receivers and terrestrial antennas mounted inside a conference room at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum on Cleveland's lakefront. The World Series broadcast is a "defining moment" for the future of television, said ATSC Chairman Richard Friedel in a statement. Friedel is executive vice president-general manager, Fox Networks Engineering and Operations.

The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology requested copies of One Media reports on single frequency network tests in Washington and Baltimore using ATSC 3.0, said an ex parte filing posted in docket 16-142 Monday from One Media Executive Vice President-Legal Affairs Jerald Fritz. The tests are intended to “establish signal strength in an environment where content is transmitted over the same channel in the same geographical area,” the filing said. Initial testing showed clean signals were received without interference, One Media said. The tests are the first phase of “multiple planned measurement tests,” said the joint venture of Coherent Logix and Sinclair.

Responses from E.W. Scripps and WCPO-TV Cincinnati to complaints by transparency groups (see 1609300059) about the station's online political file affirm WCPO's “flagrant non-compliance” with the Communications Act and FCC rules, said the Benton Foundation, Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause and Sunlight Foundation, in a reply Thursday. The FCC should act before the Nov. 8 election to require WCPO to correct its online political advertising files, the groups said. They asked the agency to "promptly take other measures, including assessing forfeitures and issuing a Public Notice reminding broadcast stations of their obligations, to ensure that all Commission licensees get the message that the Commission will no longer tolerate pervasive non-compliance during this important election season, or ever.” Scripps' argument that the groups should have approached the station about the problem before the FCC is incorrect, the groups said. “It is WCPO’s responsibility to comply with the rules without prompting and, in any event, it is not the job of the public to identify violations and enforce noncompliance,” the groups said. “This is the Commission’s job.” Scripps didn't comment Friday.

Presidential campaign advertising spending could be “a nice lift” for broadcasters and streaming service Pandora, Macquarie analysts Amy Yong, Rachel Arrowood and Alessandra Gonzalez emailed investors. Pandora has political ad sales teams in New York and Washington, D.C., in addition to local sales teams, the analysts said Thursday. Those offices are expected to lead to more political spending on Pandora, they said. “Management expects to benefit significantly from local house and senate races on top of the Presidential election.” Cumulus is also well-positioned for incremental revenue in a presidential year, with 76 stations in swing states, the analysts said. Earlier this week, another analyst said late spending by the campaign of Donald Trump may help some TV station owners (see 1610190022), after some of their shares fell on concerns about Trump's relatively low spending (see 1609210075).