TV stations airing video news releases (VNRs) still must disclose to viewers that they're sponsored content, or risk FCC fines, the Enforcement Bureau said in two notices of apparent liability released Thursday afternoon. They came in response to complaints from 2006 by groups seeking better corporate disclosure in media, including Free Press, and caught one of the licensees and both the complainants off guard. News Corp.’s Fox Television Stations and Access.1 Communications each face $4,000 fines. Although the penalties are small, the decisions highlight the fact that the commission wants broadcasters to make sponsorship disclosures even when stations aren’t paid to run VNRs.
Talks for new retransmission consent deals during blackouts of carriage may move more quickly when there’s little involvement from lawmakers and regulators, as shown by an eight-day dispute between Dish Network and LIN Media, broadcast executives said. The DBS provider resumed carrying 27 of the broadcaster’s stations in 17 markets March 13. The blackout didn’t last as long as a much higher profile dispute between Cablevision and News Corp.’s Fox network, which took almost twice as long to resolve. The lack of public involvement from the FCC or members of Congress, both more active on Cablevision-Fox, may have been among the reasons that Dish-LIN was resolved more quickly, said some broadcast industry officials.
Whether the FCC should promulgate rules for TV antennas came up in several filings, posted to docket 10-235, on a rulemaking notice setting the stage for the agency to hold incentive auctions if it gets congressional authority. The NAB and Association for Maximum Service Television said the regulator ought to look into requiring antennas to carry labels outlining their performance. That filing and others said labeling won’t overcome technical hurdles (CD March 11 p6)to designing antennas so portable devices can get mobile DTV in the VHF band, where the commission seeks to voluntarily move some stations. Consumer electronics industry filings said the FCC lacks authority to take any action on antennas.
The FCC spectrum dashboard has shortfalls that prevent it from being an authoritative and comprehensive inventory of who occupies what radio waves, broadcast lawyers and executives said. The dashboard has been promoted by Chairman Julius Genachowski and other top commission officials as providing the public with a way to easily track what spectrum has been licensed, so the agency can get congressional approval to hold an incentive auction. The tool doesn’t track low-power stations, even those that have the same obligations and rights as full-power broadcasters, industry lawyers noted. The dashboard excludes data from the NTIA, so it doesn’t track government spectrum, they noted.
The FCC may for the first time try to conclude whether the market for pay-TV is competitive, judging by questions in a draft notice of inquiry for an annual report to Congress, commission officials said. The structure of the notice is similar to an FCC report on wireless competition, they said. That report, issued in May, drew controversy inside the FCC and out (CD May 21 p1) for saying for the first time that the commission couldn’t conclude that the wireless market was competitive.
The FCC is overdue to act on a program access complaint by Verizon against Cablevision, the telco said. It said the agency was supposed to have acted at least three months ago on Verizon’s request for access to the two HD versions of the cable operator’s New York area regional sports networks. A deadline to act in five months, which the FCC created 13 years ago in carrying out the 1992 Cable Act, “has long since passed,” Verizon Deputy General Counsel Michael Glover wrote Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake on Wednesday. Commission and industry officials had expected final action on complaints against Cablevision by Verizon and AT&T to be taken by now (CD June 29 p6).
The FCC should auction the 700 MHz D block if legislation isn’t soon passed about what to do with that spectrum, said Commissioner Robert McDowell, who has long supported selling that spectrum. He said the commission also should act on its own to further the development of white spaces devices, if Congress doesn’t soon pass legislation allowing the agency to hold an incentive auction. Speaking at an event sponsored by Catholic University, McDowell touched on another issue where he’s long been active at the FCC: Getting unlicensed devices on the market that use the spaces between TV channels.
NCTA hired Michael Powell as president and CEO, the cable association confirmed Tuesday. That ended several months of speculation that the former Republican chairman of the FCC would get the top job at NCTA. Kyle McSlarrow is vacating that position at month’s end to work for Comcast. Powell will leave Providence Equity Partners, where he’s a senior adviser, to start at NCTA on April 25. He'll have his hands full trying to keep cable operators and programmers, including Comcast, in harmony on issues proving somewhat divisive, industry officials said. Those issues include net neutrality and retransmission consent deals, cable executives have said (CD March 10 p4).
The FCC should delay an incentive auction of TV spectrum for at least a decade to give broadcasters time to start using a more efficient signal modulation standard, a midsize broadcaster’s CEO said Friday. Jim Goodmon of Capitol Broadcasting, known as a maverick for pushing technology and other changes before broadcasters do, told us he thinks that the industry can soon agree to use OFDM to replace the 8-VSB standard used for digital broadcasts.
Moving TV stations to lower channel slots won’t let them broadcast to mobile devices, which many in the industry are banking on to help keep the medium competitive with newer media, agreed numerous executives and technical consultants to broadcasters. FCC officials have been saying publicly for some time that they hope to repack some TV stations into the VHF band. That’s part of the commission’s ongoing effort to reallot 120 MHz from TV to wireless broadband, something drawing concern from broadcasters who don’t want to be adversely affected if they don’t agree to move.