Elimination of the requirement broadcasters file midterm equal employment opportunity reports took effect Wednesday, said a Media Bureau public notice Friday. The FCC adopted an order eliminating the requirement in February as part of media regulation modernization (see 1902140053).

Standard Media agreed to buy ABC affiliates WLNE-TV New Bedford, Massachusetts, and KLKN Lincoln, Nebraska, from Citadel Communications, said a joint news release from the companies Thursday. “We look at this acquisition as the first of many as we work to create a new competitive player in the consolidating broadcast TV industry,” said Standard CEO Deb McDermott. The deal is expected to close in Q4. Standard was originally created to purchase divestitures from Sinclair/Tribune, but remained in business after that deal collapsed.

The FCC should allow AM stations to move to the 45-50 MHz section of the VHF band, said WRNJ Radio in a petition for rulemaking posted Thursday in docket 13-249. There is “a large portion of vacant space” in the band, WRNJ said. Current occupants of that spectrum are listed as state and local emergency management, police dispatch and EMS paging, the petition said. WRNJ has found that spectrum largely devoid of signals in New Jersey and New York, and that major manufacturers no longer make equipment for that band, the filing said. “WRNJ recognizes there are still a few users, but it is believed that it is just a matter of time before they also migrate.” Allowing AM stations to voluntarily move to the band and operate in digital mode would address the interference issues plaguing their current home and wouldn’t require additional FM translators, WRNJ said.

Deregulating radio ownership to the extent proposed by NAB in the quadrennial review could have “profound and unforeseen consequences,” said Salem Media CEO Edward Atsinger and radio host Hugh Hewitt in a meeting with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai Wednesday, said a filing posted Friday in docket 18-349. The meeting included a representative from iHeartRadio. Both radio broadcasters oppose the NAB plan, along with the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters and the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council, the filing said. Salem wants the rules kept at the status quo, while iHeart has argued that only AM subcaps should be dissolved. The NAB plan would lead to “foreseeable and troubling migration of content from the AM band to the FM band,” Salem said. “There is a real public interest imperative for the Commission to ensure the continued health of AM stations,” the filing said. NAB didn't comment.

Twelve of the 23 short-form applications for a June 25 auction of mutually exclusive FM-translator construction permits -- called Auction 100 -- are incomplete, the FCC Office of Economics and Analytics and the Media Bureau said in a public notice in Thursday’s Daily Digest. Deficiencies in the 12 incomplete applications must be corrected by May 29.

Some 22 percent of U.S. broadband households use an antenna to watch broadcasts, said Parks Associates Tuesday. Households with both antennas and pay TV subscribe to multiple over-the-top video services and are more likely to own connected entertainment devices than average broadband or pay-TV-only households, it said. Parks identified two camps of TV antenna users: those who use them exclusively for TV viewing as a no-cost way to get entertainment, live sports and news, and a second group that uses antennas and over-the-air content to supplement a larger entertainment portfolio. The second group is driving demand for universal discovery across multiple content sources to simplify the process of finding content they want to watch, said analyst Brett Sappington.

Grant Bryan Broadcasting’s petition for the FCC to allow AM stations to voluntarily transition to all-digital HD radio, commented NAB, posted Friday in RM-11836. “We agree with the Petitioner that all-digital AM service will allow broadcasters to provide substantially improved sound quality that could help AM stations to retain and attract listeners in the increasingly competitive audio marketplace.” There's broad support for the proposal among broadcasters, NAB said. The FCC should provide an incentive for AM stations to make the jump since HD Radio receiver penetration hasn’t reached 50 percent in any market, said engineering consulting firm Communications Technologies Inc. “Promptly” issue an NPRM on allowing a transition “on a voluntary basis under an expedited, simplified elective process,” said the California and Missouri broadcasters associations. Transmitting using all-digital MA3 mode as the petition suggests would help AM “achieve aural and visual parity with other services found in vehicle entertainment systems,” said Hubbard Radio.

DOJ’s recent successful court battle to require Florida company RM Broadcasting register as a foreign agent for arranging broadcasts of Russian state-owned media “demonstrates renewed effort” by the agency to enforce the Foreign Agents Registration Act, DOJ said Monday. The case was the first FARA civil enforcement action since 1991, and was decided in Florida federal court last week (in Pacer). DOJ had argued that by arranging broadcasts of Russian radio service Sputnik on WZHF(AM) Capitol Heights, Maryland, RM Broadcasting has been acting as an agent of Russian government-controlled news agency Rossiya Segodnya. RM sued DOJ in October and DOJ brought a counterclaim. Though RM Broadcasting had argued that it merely brokers the sale of airtime and had no part in content decisions, the court ruled last week that RM’s contract with Rossiya Segodnya requires it to perform a variety of services for the news agency that amount to acting as its agent. “The language of the Services Agreement contradicts RM Broadcasting’s assertion that it only buys and resells radio airtime,” said the judgment. RM Broadcasting’s attorney Nicole Waid, of FisherBroyles, said in an interview the company is evaluating options for an appeal. DOJ’s ramping up of FARA enforcement against broadcasters is a response to a 2016 Office of Inspector General report that identified FARA as an underutilized rule. So far, the agency has gone only after smaller companies such as RM Broadcasting and Reston Translator (see 1712040054), but FARA’s broad language could allow the agency to bring the same sort of enforcement actions against larger Internet and cable companies, Waid said. “Our concern is, where does it stop?” Waid said. “The American people have a right to know if a foreign flag waves behind speech broadcast in the United States,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers in the release.

Apollo Global Management hasn’t adequately demonstrated public interest benefits of its proposed purchase of stations from Northwest Broadcasting and Cox, the American TV Alliance (ATVA) commented and anticonsolidation groups petitioned to deny, in filings posted in docket 19-98 Monday (see 1903060078). The FCC should force Apollo to provide public interest justifications for the top-four duopolies and “quadropolies” that would result from the deal even though most of those combinations involve low-power TV stations or multicast channels, said ATVA. MVPD groups pushed the FCC to regulate top-four combinations of LPTV stations in recent comments on the 2018 quadrennial review. “If faced with an application for a full-power triopoly or quadropoly, the FCC would dismiss it out of hand,” ATVA said. Apollo seeks to use after-acquired clauses to raise the retransmission consent rates of all the Cox stations to match the higher rates currently enjoyed by the Northwest stations, ATVA said. “These price increases appear to be the main purpose of the transaction and why Apollo asked the Commission to approve its Northwest acquisition before its Cox acquisition.” Since it's a private equity firm, Apollo and subsidiary Terrier Media Buyer could “implement aggressive cost cutting strategies” that could include newsroom layoffs and homogenized programming, said Common Cause, Common Cause Ohio and the United Church of Christ jointly. Apollo’s filings “outlining vague putative public interest benefits and “corporate status as a private equity firm” don’t “suggest any commitment to localism,” the groups said. Darryl Beauford -- a viewer of Cox's WSB-TV Atlanta -- said the deal should be rejected because he was denied access to the station’s public file when he tried to view it in 2015 after complaining about the station’s content. “The conduct of WSB-TV is unbecoming of a trustee of the Community based on the fact that purposely, with full intention, violated this Core Regulation.” Beauford said. Cox and Apollo didn’t comment.

No additional news organizations registered with the FCC as U.S.-based foreign media outlets by the April 12 deadline, according to the agency report to Congress and in Friday's Daily Digest. The semi-annual reports are required under the McCain National Defense Authorization Act (see 1809050009). The FCC said the two outlets in its inaugural report from November (see 1811130076) submitted filings to the agency after being contacted by staff. MHz News said its parent company is 100 percent owned by U.S. citizens and was submitting out of an abundance of transparency and caution and that Anadolu Agency said it's solely financed and owned by its Turkish news agency parent.