The FCC Enforcement Bureau wants Administrative Law Judge Jane Halprin to compel broadcaster Snake River Radio to produce evidence it promised in the license hearing proceeding for its station KPCQ(AM) Chubbuck, Idaho, said a motion for leave and a motion to compel posted in docket 22-53 Monday. The proceeding concerns KPCQ’s period of silence and whether Snake River’s tower was removed during some of that time (see 2205190048). Snake River promised to provide evidence that several photos of the station’s tower were taken during the period the Enforcement Bureau is arguing it was removed, but the broadcaster missed an Aug. 12 deadline and since then hasn’t responded to repeated EB requests, the filings said.
Geobroadcast Solutions’ testing of its ZoneCast geotargeted radio technology wasn’t comprehensive and ignored recommendations from chief technology officers and chief engineers at Beasley, Audacy, Cumulus and iHeart, said a joint filing from those CTOs and engineers posted in docket 20-401 Thursday. Those companies oppose the FCC’s geotargeted radio proposal, and Thursday’s filing is a response to a GBS ex parte filing that said the companies declined to offer input on the tests. “These tests have addressed all the specific questions pertinent to the decision before the FCC that have been raised in this proceeding,” said the GBS filing. GBS has “consistently presented the Commission with contrived field testing designed to minimize the true interference impact of its proprietary ZoneCasting proposal,” the filing said. The companies provided input to GBS in 2020 on the parameters for a proposed field test in San Francisco, but that test didn’t happen and the subsequent field tests performed by GBS weren’t as comprehensive, the filing said. “The undersigned CTOs gave their attention and knowledgeable input” as to “the minimum necessary field tests for ZoneCasting,” but GBS “misunderstood -- or ignored -- those parameters” in the tests it did do, the filing said. GBS didn’t comment.
Comments are due Oct. 3, replies Oct. 18, on America-CV’s petition for a declaratory ruling allowing it to be up to 100% foreign owned, said a public notice in docket 22-213. The request involves a bankruptcy reorganization that would transfer ACV’s four TV stations in Puerto Rico and one in Miami to Vasallo TV Group, which is owned by Spanish citizen Carlos Vasallo, the filing said.
The U.S. broadcasting industry is expected to reach $36.47 billion in total advertising revenue in 2022, said a report from S&P Global Market Intelligence’s Kagan Tuesday. That’s an increase of 12.9% from $32.31 billion in 2021, returning to pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels, S&P Global said in a release. Spending in the 2022 midterm election is expected to reach $3.49 billion, an increase of 15% from the 2018 midterm elections, the report said. “Radio's lower ad cost, local audience and relatively high return on investment compared to other media will keep it relevant, although digital investments point to future growth opportunities with the spot ad market for radio expected to decline over the forecast period,” said the report.
The FCC Media Bureau approved two channel substitutions from Maine Public Broadcasting, said orders Monday. In docket 22-150, WCBB Augusta will switch from Channel 10 to 20, and in docket 22-215 WMEB-TV Orono will switch from 9 to 22.
The only way to know if merger conditions could make Standard/Tegna favorable to the public interest is for the FCC to grant public interest groups’ motion to require more information from the companies, said the Communications Workers of America's NewsGuild and National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians sectors and Common Cause in a call with Media Bureau Chief Holly Saurer and Media Bureau staff Thursday. “Without such information, neither the Commission nor objecting parties can even begin to assess how any conditions might be constructed,” said an ex parte filing in docket 22-166. The groups want additional information on how the combined company would staff and manage the purchased Tegna stations and seek “any document, such as a presentation, final agreement, e-mail or text communication” on future staffing plans “whether made to potential lenders, investors, board members, executives, or third parties.” The groups are also seeking more information about the investors funding the deal, the filing said. “Without that information, and regardless of how interests are portrayed as mere lending arrangements or passive ownership, it is not possible” to judge “whether they will be in a position to exercise ownership in ways that would require those interests to be denominated as attributable,” the filing said. The filing also asked the FCC to require submission of portions of the merger agreement that Standard/Tegna argued aren’t germane, including sections dealing with employee benefit plans, tax matters and indebtedness. Standard General didn't comment.
The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA) has international support, said the News Media Alliance in a news release Thursday. Multinational organizations and groups in Canada, Australia, Europe and Latin America endorsed the proposed legislation, NMA said. “Particularly notable is the support from Australia” where similar rules were adopted “to address bargaining power imbalances between Australian publishers and Big Tech,” NMA said. The Australian law led to payouts to publishers from Facebook and Google. Canada, Europe and the U.K. are working toward passing similar laws, NMA said. In Australia, “compensation accrued to date amounts to approximately 20 percent of Australian journalists’ salaries and likely more than 20 percent of eligible publishers’ combined" EBITDA, NMA said. The JCPA is set for Senate Judiciary Committee markup in September.
“Specific and enforceable conditions” prohibiting joint retransmission consent negotiation are necessary for the Standard/Tegna deal, the American Television Association said in a call with an aide to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel Monday. “Any such conditions should last so long as Cox, Apollo, and their affiliates hold a financial interest in New TEGNA,” said an ex parte filing posted Thursday in docket 22-122. The applicants haven’t provided sufficient information for the FCC to tell whether Cox and Apollo Global Management would hold attributable interests in the new company, ATVA said.
The FCC Enforcement Bureau issued several notices of illegal pirate radio broadcasting this week, said letters in Thursday’s Daily Digest. Letters were sent to Clearview in Bethesda, Maryland, and to Steve Tiamfook and Russell Evelyn and 100 E 92nd LLC, both in Brooklyn, New York, warning of possible forfeitures of over $2 million for “entities found to willfully and knowingly suffer (i.e., permit) a third party” to make unauthorized broadcasts on their property. The recipients have 10 days to respond to the agency, the letters said.
“Given the paucity of minority-owned media,” the Asian-American ownership of would-be Tegna-buyer Standard General should “play an appropriate role in the outcome” of the FCC’s review of the deal, said Crossings TV CEO Frank Washington in a letter to the agency posted in docket 22-162. Standard's founder Soohyung Kim would head up the board of the combined company. “There are no Asian American owned networks or media holdings of significant size,” said Washington, a former FCC deputy bureau chief who was involved in the minority tax certificate’s creation and the Viacom deal that led to Congress repealing the program. “There was a time when the FCC recognized the importance of this to the programming, societal and political landscape of this country,” he said in the letter: “Given the focus in opposing comments on Apollo’s role in this, why does this seem to always be a factor when a minority is involved?” (see 2207260058).