The Media Bureau released a $6,400 forfeiture order Monday against Wendolynn Tellez, licensee of KSAG (FM) Pearsall, Texas, for repeatedly relocating the station without FCC approval, and not building new facilities at the location authorized (see 1801100049). The penalty was reduced from the $8,000 originally proposed because of a history of complying with FCC rules, the order said.

The FCC designated the license of KLSX(FM), Rozet, Wyoming, for hearing over a record of “extended periods of silence,” said a hearing designation order (HDO) released Monday. KLSX went silent after one day of operation just after its license was issued to Family Voice Communications in 2010 and “has remained primarily silent since then,” the order said. The hearing designation order had been set for Thursday's commissioners' meeting. The agency released an agenda deletion notice a few hours after the release of the order Monday. The station has operated just a few days a year for the bulk of its existence, a total of 396 operational days out of eight years, the order said. The vast majority of that total is recent -- the station has had a string of 254 operational days since August, the order said. That operational stretch begins just after the FCC designated another station’s license for hearing over extended silences (see 1708160032). The proceeding against KLSX will be a “paper hearing” because the FCC hasn’t found any credibility issues with the facts of the proceeding, the order said. The hearing won’t involve discovery, but the agency requested copies from Family Voice of program logs and emergency alert system records. The company has 30 days after the HDO is published in the Federal Register to provide those records, and 60 days to file a response, the order said. KLSX didn’t comment.

Hemisphere Media petitioned the FCC Media Bureau for a declaratory ruling authorizing a change in the broadcaster’s foreign ownership, said a public notice Friday. The bureau in 2017 already approved Hemisphere's request to be up to 49.9 percent foreign owned, to allow a trust controlled by Mexican nationals to own a stake in the broadcaster, the PN said. Now the membership of the trust has changed and Hemisphere seeks permission for a different Mexico-based entity, Cinema Aeropuerto, to own the same stake in the company, the PN said. Comments on the petition are due June 4, replies June 19, the PN said.

Litton Entertainment is the company that met with FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly on kidvid rules last week (see 1805030032).

The FCC Public Safety Bureau granted a waiver and application from the city of North Miami Beach for a new Travelers Information Station (TIS), said an order Thursday. North Miami Beach needed a waiver of agency separation rules due to the geography of the area where the station is to be located and a lack of alternative frequencies, the order said. The bureau said the waiver wouldn’t cause interference problems because the new station’s signal will reach too close to existing stations’ only over water, the order said. “The separation of 19 kilometers to the contour’s closest point on land gives us confidence that the TIS station will not result in actual harmful interference,” the order said. The TIS station will serve the public interest by enhancing emergency communications, the order said.

Broadcast-only households are on the rise and millions of Americans don’t have access to broadband, said Litton Entertainment CEO Dave Morgan in a meeting with Commissioner Mike O’Rielly on the FCC's kidvid rules, said an ex parte filing posted Thursday in docket 17-105. Litten’s programming “highly over-indexes with underserved audiences” and is more likely to be viewed over-the-air then by other means, the filing said.

The FCC reporting rule change for broadcasters that don’t collect income from ancillary services took effect with Thursday publication in the Federal Register. Stations that don’t collect such income don’t have to submit those forms.

Sky will beam coverage of the May 19 royal wedding live in 4K, a “world first for any royal event,” reported the broadcaster Wednesday. Sky will position 51 4K cameras around St. George's Chapel, the grounds of Windsor Castle and around Windsor town center for the daylong event, it said.

The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York confirmed Cumulus Media’s reorganization plan, Cumulus said in a news release Wednesday. Cumulus “expects to emerge from Chapter 11 before the end of the quarter,” the release said. “Upon completion of the restructuring process, the Company’s debt will have been reduced by more than $1 billion, and Cumulus will have greater financial flexibility with which to support its ongoing business transformation,” the release said. The restructuring of Cumulus is expected to benefit the entire radio industry, analysts said. (see 1711300059).

Day Two of ATSC’s Next-Gen TV Conference will mark 25 years to the day of the formation of HDTV’s Grand Alliance that became the basis of the current A/53 ATSC 1.0 DTV broadcast system, said an ATSC agenda item. Details of the commemoration weren’t disclosed. The alliance, formed officially on May 24, 1993, settled on an approach that allowed both progressive and interlaced scanning, but encouraged a rapid transition to all-progressive, according to coverage by our predecessor newsletter Television Digest With Consumer Electronics and by Communications Daily. According to the Digest, the alliance included the partnership of General Instrument and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which advocated both progressive and interlaced systems; the Advanced TV Research Consortium of NBC, Philips, Sarnoff Labs, Thomson and Compression Labs (interlaced only); and the team of Zenith and AT&T (progressive only). The alliance had its critics, said the Digest. Nicholas Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, blasted the alliance as a “terrible mistake” because it would isolate the U.S. from global standards-setting on DTV. Attempts to reach Negroponte for comment on whether he stands by his criticisms 25 years later were unsuccessful.