All companies and groups commenting backed a broadcast coalition’s clarification request (http://bit.ly/11eis79) (CD Feb 27 p14) for the FCC to allow on a case-by-case basis foreign investments in U.S. broadcasters exceeding 25 percent. Some individuals opposed the change. Many of the initial comments posted this week in docket 13-50 (http://bit.ly/10bzk2S) cited competition from new and other media not subject to the same rules. The commission hasn’t waived the 25 percent threshold for radio and TV-station ownership, though it has such procedures for telecom investments, said Nexstar (http://bit.ly/YQFt2C) and others. Cybersecurity and other concerns that may face wireless and wireline investments held by those outside the U.S. don’t apply to stations, said NAB (http://bit.ly/11nLv98).

There were failures among many types of emergency alert system participants and at many levels in the so-called daisy chain distributing EAS warnings, the FCC said sixteen months after the first nationwide simulation. There’s a “Need for Additional Rulemakings” and other steps by the commission and Federal Emergency Management Agency before another test is held, said one subsection heading of the Public Safety Bureau report. The study sought a “re-examination” of FCC state EAS plan rules, with some plans not providing enough details about alert propagation, said the report. EAS stakeholders we spoke with said they generally backed its recommendations and found it a useful document even so long after the Nov. 9, 2011, test. Members of Congress were among those who had scrutinized the results and sought such an autopsy (CD Nov 18/11 p1).

LAS VEGAS -- FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski thinks his departure won’t affect the “continuity” of the voluntary incentive auction of TV frequencies, and that broadcasters shouldn’t view it as a “zero-sum game” between stations and carriers, he said Wednesday in a Q-and-A at the NAB Show. Just like cable -- which broadcasters initially opposed -- expanded stations’ revenue and business opportunities, so too will mobile wireless do so for stations, he said. Every stakeholder “should take this problem-solving and fact and data approach” to the auction and other issues before the FCC, just as commissioners have done, “even where we've disagreed, and we disagree fairly frequently,” Genachowski said. “We've worked to keep the focus on problem solving,” as “even where we disagree, we've been able to avoid dysfunction,” he said.

LAS VEGAS -- Chances are the FCC won’t have finished the media ownership review due in 2010 by fall, with the 2010 quadrennial review likely to outlast the tenure of departing Chairman Julius Genachowski, agreed panelists including Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake. “My guess is we'll still be working on it” in the fall, the fourth anniversary of a workshop that began the 2010 review, said Lake. With the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council study (CD Feb 27 p1) of the effect of cross-ownership on minority stations due to be complete in about four weeks, it’s still possible “the commission may be prepared to take a vote” then, Lake said Tuesday at NAB’s show.

LAS VEGAS -- Broadcaster uncertainty about the voluntary incentive auction was evident this week at NAB events, and in our interviews with station executives and lawyers. Class A station owners asked more questions than Media Bureau staffers working on the auction had answers for at a standing-room-only bureau event Monday evening. The next day, participants told us they're happy the bureau held the event and that staff will continue to engage with them, but questions still pervade. They have queries about the nature of the auction itself and about what a public notice Friday freezing processing of some broadcaster applications means (CD April 8 p5) as well as some comments by bureau staff that indicate some Class A’s may be ineligible to sell all or some of their channels.

LAS VEGAS -- TV stations’ statutory signal protections are stronger than the top-two U.S. carriers’ advantages of size, said Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam. “So why do you guys need protecting now,” he asked NAB CEO Gordon Smith at the association’s show Tuesday. “For people who say AT&T and Verizon dominate wireless, I'd like to be” in a broadcaster’s position when it comes to signal exclusivity within an affiliate’s market, McAdam said in a one-on-one where Smith asked the questions. “I think we actually partner pretty well with NAB,” and Verizon’s desire to reduce the size of cable channel bundles “isn’t a cause célèbre for us” but rather an early warning of the need to move toward a la carte, McAdam said later in the Q-and-A.

LAS VEGAS -- Not all TV stations are worth the same. At least not when it comes to what the FCC will offer to pay them to participate in a reverse auction to prepare to offer their frequencies to the highest bidder, said the commission official leading such planning. Stations that would free up more spectrum by participating may be paid more, said the official, Gary Epstein. The Incentive Auction Task Force chief was answering a question from the audience at an NAB panel by Executive Director Preston Padden of the Expanding Opportunities for Broadcasters Coalition, which opposes such value scoring.

LAS VEGAS -- That News Corp. would consider making Fox a pay-TV network if Aereo is legally able to deliver that and other broadcast network stations’ signals to subscribers without paying retransmission consent caught some NAB attendees by surprise. “We're not going to sit idly by” with the upstart online service able to transmit stations to Aereo subscribers, News Corp. Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey said in a Q-and-A with NAB CEO Gordon Smith. “Clearly there’s a path available to us, that’s a business solution available to us, if we can’t get our rights protected in another way.” Making Fox a cable network isn’t Carey’s preference, he said Monday at the NAB show.

LAS VEGAS -- Broadcasters should give a close look to updating technologies, from better targeting ads to moving to a new terrestrial TV standard, NAB CEO Gordon Smith said at the start of the association’s annual conference. The rollout of mobile DTV is picking up speed, as evidenced by broadcasters adding more markets for the service (CD April 3 p10), he said Monday. Other technology updates may be needed to ward off competition from carriers and other rivals to broadcasters, he said.

DirecTV and the Weather Channel would get more time to comply with coming FCC requirements (CD March 29 p4) for on-screen emergency information to be carried in a format where it can be aurally relayed to those with vision problems, while some small cable operators could seek waivers, said agency and industry officials. They said Media Bureau staff recently proposed to other FCC officials making such changes to a draft order due under statute to be issued by Tuesday. Those changes address some of the concerns of DirecTV and the Weather Channel to give the DBS provider and the programmer a delay in making localized emergency information available on the secondary audio programming stream, or carrying that SAP information as video descriptions, said commission and industry officials. Those two companies and the American Cable Association had sought changes for passing along SAP to TV viewers to what’s in the Feb. 28 version of the draft order.