Protecting broadcasting “should not mean inviting hedge funds, private equity, and other predatory investors to undermine local broadcasting in order to extract profits,” said Claude Cummings, president-Communications Workers of America (CWA), and Charlie Braico, president-National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians-CWA, in a news release Wednesday responding to testimony and a blog from NAB CEO Curtis LeGeyt. Both unions were part of the successful opposition to Standard's proposed buy of Tegna. Any efforts at the FCC or Congress to change the merger review process should ensure unions have standing to oppose broadcast deals, include labor markets as part of public interest review, and preserve the fact-finding hearing process, the unions said. “In his call for a simple ‘up or down vote,’ LeGeyt is more concerned with rushing the process than with transparency and thoroughness,” the unions said. “Employment at broadcast TV stations is material to determining whether localism, and therefore the public interest, is being served by a transaction.” NAB didn't comment.
Fox Television Stations didn’t properly maintain WTXF-TV Philadelphia’s online public file and then misrepresented whether it had done so, said the Media and Democracy Project in a letter to the FCC Monday. MAD conceded in the letter that online public file violations aren’t typically a basis for license renewals to be designated for hearing but said they are relevant when considered alongside the other allegations raised against parent company Fox. “Material misrepresentations however minor add to the disqualifying grounds already set forth,” said the letter. MAD argued that political advertising contracts were uploaded to the file late -- in some case after the ads had aired -- and said FTS misrepresented those contracts as inquiries to bolster its contention the filings weren’t late. MAD also took aim at FTS arguments that technical difficulties with the online public file affected filing times. The FCC and numerous attorneys have experienced issues with the agency’s filing systems throughout 2023 (see 2306200063), but FTS didn’t adequately document such a problem, MAD said. “If FTS truly was unable to timely file political contracts due to technical difficulties, it should have included the details in its renewal application,” MAD said. “FTS did none of this and is now offering post hoc excuses to justify its repeated failure.” Fox didn’t comment.
With the FCC now at five commissioners (see 2309070081), the agency should act on “ambitious and necessary reforms” to preserve local broadcasting, said NAB CEO Curtis LeGeyt in a blog post Friday. The FCC “must actively consider whether their policies, which value a strong system of local broadcasting, are keeping pace” with modern competition, LeGeyt said. The five-person commission should ensure the agency’s merger review process “will conclude with an up or down vote in a timely fashion,” said LeGeyt, likely referencing the failed Standard General/Tegna merger (see 2306010077). “Opaque and shifting guidelines about broadcaster transactions can deter potential buyers from investing in new and established entrants,” he wrote. The agency should also refresh the record in docket 14-261 on reclassifying streaming services -- sometimes called virtual MVPDs -- as MVPDs bound by retransmission consent requirements, LeGeyt said. “The system of regulations applied to legacy pay-TV providers recognizes the importance local broadcasters play in their communities.” LeGeyt also urged the agency to relax broadcast ownership rules so broadcasters can scale up to compete with larger digital media companies. “As broadcasters fight for audiences and advertisers with much larger competitors, having the scale to compete will allow us to continue to improve the quality and local focus of programming,” LeGeyt said.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, mentioned the license renewal proceeding for Fox Television Stations-owned WTXF-TV Philadelphia in a floor speech before the confirmation vote for FCC nominee Anna Gomez Thursday. The FCC “is now entertaining requests by radical left-wing groups to revoke a broadcast station’s license for alleged ‘misinformation’ and turning a routine FCC license renewal proceeding into a truth commission,” said Cruz. The petition to deny 's supporters are “bipartisan including Bill Kristol, former editor of Murdoch’s conservative Weekly Standard magazine, Al Sikes, former Republican Chairman of the FCC and me -- longtime Republican enabler of Fox!,” said former Fox executive and longtime lobbyist Preston Padden in an email. “No one except Senator Cruz is talking about a ‘truth Commission’.” "The Senator's characterization of this effort couldn't be further from the truth," said petitioner the Media and Democracy Project (MAD) in an emailed statement. "The issue here concerns a massive media corporation that, with management's full knowledge and approval, is documented to have lied to millions of Americans." None of the allegations made by MAD against owner Fox Television Stations and its parent company, Fox, should lead to the station’s license being designated for hearing, said Fox in an ex parte meeting Tuesday with FCC Media Bureau Chief Holly Saurer, said an ex parte filing Thursday in docket 23-293. The Communications Act and FCC rules “compel dismissal of MAD’s petition and related filings, and grant of renewal of Fox 29 Philadelphia’s license,” said the filing. FCC rules list a narrow range of categories of non-FCC related conduct that are relevant to considerations of a licensee's character, Fox said. Those include criminal convictions, mass-media antitrust violations, and crimes involving false statements to other government entities. The rules allow for consideration of “non-adjudicated misconduct” but require it to be “so egregious as to shock the conscience and evoke almost ‘universal’ disapprobation,” Fox said. Fox has the “requisite character qualifications and no allegations have been plead concerning potentially ‘relevant’ conduct," the filing said. The MAD petition should also be rejected because it was filed untimely, seeks to apply FCC broadcast rules to cable news, and would amount to changes in the FCC’s character policy without notice or comment, the filing said.
An effort to push the FCC to designate Fox-owned WTXF-TV Philadelphia's license for hearing is "a longshot" but isn’t “frivolous,” wrote Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld in a blog post Tuesday. The allegations from the Media and Democracy Project “raise real, if novel questions” on the boundaries of the FCC’s character policies and how the conduct of one part of a company reflects on another subsidiary’s fitness to hold a broadcast license, Feld wrote. The agency will eventually “have to actually write up a real and binding decision with real consequences and real precedential value,” Feld wrote. In an interview, he conceded the FCC could take a long time to do so and could even potentially let the matter sit until a new administration takes over. A previous dispute involving the license of Fox-owned station WWOR-TV Secaucus, New Jersey, caused the FCC to take seven years, from 2007 to 2014, to approve renewal.
The FCC Media Bureau proposed a $20,000 forfeiture over false certifications in an application for Olympia, Washington, translator owner Northwest Rock N Roll Preservation Society (NWR), and the full FCC separately rejected a related application for review from the same broadcaster, said a notice of apparent liability and an order in Monday’s Daily Digest. Both matters appear to involve a conflict between NWR and Bicoastal Media Licenses, with Monday’s orders referencing numerous objections and challenges the two broadcasters have filed against each other. The Media Bureau said NWR made “certifications with an intent to deceive” in a license to cover application after Bicoastal filed a series of objections, the NAL said. NWR falsely certified that new facilities had been constructed to prevent a 2017 permit from expiring, and Bicoastal’s objections presented evidence the station wasn’t operating. Meanwhile, NWR’s rejected application for review challenged a Media Bureau decision denying its appeal of the MB’s grant of a construction permit to Bicoastal. The FCC didn’t agree with NWR arguments that the Media Bureau dismissed NWR’s challenge improperly and didn’t act in a timely fashion, the order said. Despite NWR’s false certifications, the NAL stops short of taking the broadcaster’s license, noting NWR admitted the violations. “We believe NWR can reasonably be expected to deal truthfully with the Commission in the future,” said the NAL.
Several Philadelphia-area elected officials -- including Reps. Brendan Boyle (D) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R) -- supported Fox-owned WTXF-TV Philadelphia’s license renewal petition, in letters posted Friday in docket 23-393 (see 2308230053). A Media and Democracy Project (MAD) petition to deny renewal of the station -- also called Fox 29 -- “ignores Fox 29 Philadelphia’s long record of exemplary service to the communities,” Fox said. MAD argued a defamation suit brought against Fox over its 2020 election reporting shows the company isn’t fit to be an FCC licensee. WTXF provides “fact-based journalism and local programming which keeps our constituents safe and informed,” said Boyle and Fitzpatrick in a joint letter included in the filing. “Your news department has been professional, honest, and fair in their reporting,” said a letter from Camden, New Jersey, Mayor Victor Carstarphen (D). Pennsylvania state legislator Anthony Bellmon (D) also wrote in support of the station. “This service should be encouraged, not threatened by baseless license renewal challenges—particularly at a time when a rapidly evolving media marketplace is challenging local media across the nation,” said Fox.
Comments are due Sept. 25, replies Oct. 10, in docket 23-281 on Vision Broadcasting’s request to be allotted noncommercial educational channel *4 in Alamogordo, New Mexico, as the community’s first local television service, said a notice in Friday’s Federal Register.
The Public Media Venture Group, the Korea Radio Promotion Association (RAPA) and WCTE Cookeville, Tennessee, launched a low-power television testbed to demonstrate what ATSC 3.0 can bring to public media, said a PMVG news release Thursday. WCTE’s Monterey, Tennessee, transmitter site will be a platform “for developing and demonstrating various ATSC 3.0 applications and use cases, such as enhanced emergency alerting, interactive education, and datacasting,” the release said. The broadcasters “anticipate the commencement of full ATSC 3.0 service to the Upper Cumberland region of Tennessee and Kentucky this fall,” the release said. The testbed was constructed with assistance from Korean ATSC 3.0 technology company DigiCAP. “In early August, a delegation of Korean engineers and technology suppliers visited WCTE to set up and test the new station,” the release said. “The launch of the testbed exemplifies the power of international collaboration and demonstrates how technology leaders and innovative broadcasters can come together to drive the future of broadcasting,” said DigiCAP Senior Vice President Joonyoung Park in the release.
Salem Media will sell South Carolina stations WGTK-FM Greenville, WRTH-FM Greer and WLTE-FM Pendleton to the Educational Media Foundation, said Salem in a news release Wednesday. “We have enjoyed our years in the Greenville-Spartanburg market but have made the strategic decision to divest our interests there,” said Salem CEO David Santrella. The price wasn’t disclosed.