The FCC Media Bureau granted Ion’s unopposed request to change the community of license for Alabama's WPXH-TV Gadsden to Hoover (see 1902050044), said a public notice Thursday.

The FCC Media Bureau and Incentive Auction Taskforce waived quarterly report due dates for repacking broadcasters that have phase completion dates close to the quarterly report deadline, said a public notice Thursday. Broadcasters have to file a report 10 weeks before their phase completion date. “As a practical matter, the close proximity of the Quarterly Report and 10-Week Report deadlines during Phases 3, 5, and 8 renders them duplicative,” the PN said. That means the April 10 report deadline for Phase 3 stations, the July 10 deadline for Phase 5 stations, and the Jan. 10 deadline for Phase 8 stations are all waived, the PN said. “Such stations will continue to be required to file their 10-Week Reports on the applicable due date.”

Eurofins Digital Testing will showcase a new conformance test suite for ATSC 3.0 at NAB, it said Wednesday. Arreios for ATSC 3.0 enables certification and testing for UHD, HDR, video over broadcast and broadband, interactive applications, targeted advertising, emergency alerts, content recovery and watermarking, it said. The company will exhibit at Futures Park in North Hall booth N1335 in the Las Vegas Convention Center and in Westgate Director C, it said.

A Dothan, Alabama, AM licensee faces a proposed forfeiture of $18,000 for originating programming on an FM translator, and relocating and going silent without permission, said an FCC Media Bureau notice of apparent liability and order Wednesday. Alabama Media’s translator station originated its own sports programming for several days and filed for a construction permit and special temporary authority only after a visit from FCC inspectors, the NAL said. Alabama Media’s translator was silent for 11 weeks, the NAL aid. “Considering the extensive and egregious nature of the apparent violations here, we believe that no downward adjustment is warranted." The bureau rejected for a lack of evidence an interference complaint and allegations Alabama Media was violating local ownership rules.

The FCC should let any AM station go all digital, Bryan Broadcasting petitioned for rulemaking, posted Tuesday in docket 13-249. The petition recognizes the reality of AM’s interference problem, blogged Wilkinson Barker broadcast attorney David Oxenford, who represents Bryan. “For those AM stations that did not get a translator, or for those whose AM signal reaches farther than a translator can, other solutions are needed,” Oxenford said Wednesday. The FCC previously has considered allowing a digital shift for AM but never pulled the trigger on allowing it, Oxenford said. It’s likely to be a while before the Bryan petition would lead to a rule change, Oxenford said, though additional stations could ask for experimental authority to shift.

Growth of “unregulated platforms” has “upended the initial justification” for the kidvid rules, said 19 groups including the American Conservative Union, Americans for Tax Reform, Campaign for Liberty and Digital Liberty, posted in docket 17-105 Wednesday. That makes the rules vulnerable to legal challenge, the groups said. “This is an area ripe for reform and deregulation,” they said. “Reducing the burden of regulation will further this Commission’s stated interest in supporting regulatory parity to avoid the creation of unnecessary market distortion.” Broadcasters' arguments they need more flexibility on kidvid are “without merit,” the Benton Foundation, Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood and Center for Digital Democracy told aides to Commissioner Geoffrey Starks, said a filing posted in docket 18-202 Wednesday. “Offering accessible, educational children’s programming is one of the few public interest obligations the broadcasters are required to meet.” Letting stations show all kidvid content on multicast channels will make it difficult to locate, and kidvid programming is already often pre-empted for live sports, the groups said. “If the rules are loosened even further, the unpredictability of when children’s programming is aired will make it even harder for parents to find.”

The Advanced Warning and Response Network Alliance will demo at next month's NAB Show a new user experience and uses for AWARN emergency alerts using the ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard, alliance Executive Director John Lawson told FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and an aide. To improve over prototypes, Lawson told Pai the group met public safety officials from cities including New York and did usability testing, recounted a filing posted Tuesday in docket 16-142. It said 3.0 could be used for connected vehicles, and there are "potential synergies between AWARN and Wireless Emergency Alerts." The standard could be used for "localized emergency alerts for streaming media," said the alliance. An alert mock-up Lawson emailed us shows a black box taking up the middle third of a TV screen, with warning text and a button on the bottom to get "more info" and another to "dismiss" the message. He told us changes from earlier versions include "a simple banner in the middle of the screen vs filling the whole page" and viewers have two choices instead of more options. AWARN could put legacy emergency alert system warning screen crawls in the top third of a TV screen and the lower third is for “'Breaking News' graphics," Lawson added. "Clicking 'more information' leads to multimedia graphics like evacuation routes and shelter locations."

FCC rules implementing the 2018 Reimbursement Expansion Act to pay back some low-power TV and translator stations and FM outlets for costs from the broadcast spectrum incentive auction are effective April 25, says a notice for Tuesday's Federal Register (date conversion here). "Compliance will not be required for §73.3701 until the Commission publishes" further FR documents, it says. That's a new rule in the order requiring a station certify it hasn't received or doesn't expect to get overlapping reimbursement from third-party sources. At their March 15 meeting, commissioners unanimously approved a reimbursement order (see 1903150073).

Anti-consolidation groups arguing against the 2014 quadrennial review and ownership reconsideration order (see 1812210070) lacked enough evidence to conclude the rule changes wouldn't significantly affect minority and female ownership and fail to account for the FCC's "reasonable judgment" that competitive changes and public policy considerations supported the moves. So argued the agency in a docket 17-1107 brief (in Pacer) posted Friday with the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The agency said it kept its restriction on mergers among the top-four rated stations because the record showed that prohibition was still an appropriate way to preserve programming competition. It said there's no requirement it show every ownership rule independently "promotes every form of diversity" and regardless, it looked at alternatives to promoting minority or female ownership but concluded they posed First and Fifth amendment challenges. The ownership rules "desperately needed change" and petitioners don't establish a right to relief under the Administrative Procedures Act deferential standard of review since the the FCC met its legal obligation by looking at the rules in light of competition, industry intervenors said (in Pacer). They said the challenge of the FCC's radio station ownership incubator program, if successful, would reverse the agency's first meaningful attempt in a generation at boosting female and minority ownership. They said petitioners seek "wildly overbroad remedies" that would invalidate actions not being challenged. The intervenors are Nexstar, Fox, News Media Alliance, NAB, News Corp., Bonneville International, Sinclair and Connoisseur Media. Petitioner outside counsel emailed us it's reviewing industry and FCC briefs but "neither grapples with the fundamental failure of the FCC to consider the harm to ownership by women and people of color caused by media consolidation.”

With an FCC freeze lifted, some expect many requests for displacement relief from low-power TV stations. The Media Bureau ordered that effective April 18, the hiatus will be off, after it was "imposed to preserve channels for the window for LPTV/translator stations displaced by the Incentive Auction to file displacement applications. Applications are on a first-come, first-served basis, said the public notice in Wednesday's Daily Digest. "The freeze on the filing of applications for new LPTV/translator digital stations and major changes remains." Requests for digital companion channels also will be accepted. The LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition expects 2,500-plus applications for relocation channels and a "wide variety of modifications," it emailed Thursday: "Full Employment For Consulting Engineers and Comm Counsel!" Fletcher Heald's Peter Tannenwald expects "many stations seeking to file" on the first day, he blogged Wednesday. The freeze dates to 2010, he wrote. "The lifting of the freeze is permanent, unlike a limited-time application 'window.'"