ATSC issued requests for proposals for an ATSC 3.0 “consumer showcase” and ATSC 3.0 “workflow demonstrations” for the NAB Show in April, ATSC said Monday in the January issue of its monthly newsletter, The Standard. The consumer showcase will be in the lobby area in the upper level of the Las Vegas Convention Center's South Hall. Managed jointly by ATSC, CTA and NAB, the showcase will emphasize products and technologies that highlight “the consumer side of ATSC 3.0,” including 4K reception, immersive audio and advanced emergency alerting, it said. The workflow demonstrations, to be in a special area of the NAB Futures Park pavilion at the east end of the Upper South Hall, will “highlight new equipment that will be required at the broadcast station to offer the consumer access to the advanced features enabled by ATSC 3.0,” it said. ATSC also is “exploring the feasibility of providing a live ATSC 3.0 link” from the workflow demonstrations to the consumer showcase, it said.

The “Future of Cinema” technical conference at April’s NAB Show will have a “refocused” theme, “with an emphasis on the work and inspiration of the industry's newest generation of filmmakers,” said conference producer Society of Motion Picture and TV Engineers Monday. The conference has gone by a series of different names in past years, most recently as the Technology Summit on Cinema event on days one and two of the NAB Show. For 2016, the Future of Cinema conference will be April 16-17 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, SMPTE said. The conference will include sessions on the “creative use” of high dynamic range and HDR mastering and delivery to the home, among other topics, SMPTE said.

No other separately owned TV station operates on a sub-channel that corresponds to the major channel of a competing TV station, Meredith and CBS said in an ex parte filing posted Monday in docket 14-150 on PMCM's channel request. The Media Bureau assigned PMCM's WJLP Middletown Township, New Jersey, to virtual channel 33, though PMCM is seeking to be assigned virtual channel 3.10. PMCM has said it needs 3.10 because viewers’ TVs don’t tune to the Media Bureau-assigned channel when “33” is entered on a remote. That’s “a problem that does not exist for these viewers if they tune ‘33.1,’” CBS and Meredith said. “Of all the [program and system information protocol] channels potentially available for WJLP, PMCM still insists on the one channel that the Media Bureau expressly has determined it cannot have.”

A pair of filing windows were set for AM stations to apply for waivers to modify and/or relocate FM translators. The FCC Media Bureau said in an announcement Wednesday the first window for AM licensees or permit holders to file an FM translator modification application will be Jan. 29-July 28, with the second July 29-Oct. 31. The windows were set as part of the FCC's AM revitalization order issued in October (see 1510260062), with the first window only for Class C and D AM stations and the second for all AM stations. The applications can be completed online at www.fcc.gov/media/radio/am-revitalization.

Grupo Televisa and Univision plan to expand their partnership to "provide more opportunities for Latinos in the U.S. media and technology sectors" in 2016, Univision said in a news release Friday. Univision said the increased partnership will include "a wide variety of education, mentorship and career development programs," and will address two main goals -- strengthening and expanding existing efforts to increase the pipeline of Latinos in the media and technology sectors and developing and educating future media leaders. Projects under the new initiative include development fellowships for multicultural and millennial writers in media, incubator programs, entrepreneurial development opportunities and various school outreach programs, said the release.

FCC Public Safety Bureau staff suggested the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council present new proposals in MMTC's 2005 petition with others for ways that broadcasters can transmit emergency alert system content in languages other than English when EAS outlets broadcasting in those languages go off air during disasters, the group said. The staff said that could "include best practices that could be reported as part of State EAS plans," MMTC said in a filing Thursday in docket 04-296. The group had asked the bureau to work with the agency "toward a workable solution that would achieve the primary goals" of what it calls the Katrina petition (see 1511170048), after the 2005 Hurricane Katrina that caused widespread loss of life and damage. "Perhaps broadcast stations might be willing to voluntarily provide multilingual emergency broadcasts," and the FCC would consider offering some regulatory relief for the “Good Samaritans,” said the group. "MMTC and FCC staff discussed the role of essential emergency personnel with language skills who could be called upon to provide multilingual radio programming during an emergency," it said of the meeting that included Chief David Simpson and others in the bureau. The FCC confirmed it invited suggestions from MMTC on further measures that EAS participants could take to support multilingual alerting, an agency spokeswoman emailed us Friday.

The FCC Media Bureau is asking for a response from 18 TV stations accused by transparency groups of airing political advertisements with an incorrectly identified sponsor, said letters sent to each station by the bureau Thursday. The Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause and Sunlight Foundation claimed in a complaint to the bureau last week (see 1512100049) that the stations had evidence that Independence USA PAC, identified as the sponsor of the commercials, is almost wholly funded by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The groups sent the stations the evidence of Bloomberg’s involvement, saying he should have been identified as the sponsor, the groups said. “Having reviewed the complaint, the Media Bureau has concluded that additional information is needed to resolve this matter,” said the letters. The stations have until Jan. 15 to respond to the complaint, and the complainants have until Jan. 29 to reply, the letters said.

The continued development of digital terrestrial DT TV (DTT) got a boost when the World Radiocommunication Conference-15 opted not to make any changes -- except for a few exceptions in Regions 2 and 3 -- to the 470-695/698 MHz band, the World Broadcasting Unions (WBU) said in a statement Friday. That no change gives European broadcasters "the required certainty" needed to invest in the 700 MHz band repacking the lower UHF band for existing TV services, WBU said. It also helps in the transition to such technologies as DVB-T2 and the introduction of more HD programming and services such as interactive hybrid broadcast broadband TV, it said. The status quo for the spectrum means broadcasters in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America and the Middle East can invest in DTT and finish the digital switchover, WBU said. And keeping the globally harmonized primary allocation for broadcasting in North America means broadcasters there can focus on the 2016 incentive auction and on DTT, WBU said.

The draft order on mitigating the effects of the broadcast incentive auction on low-power TV was added to the agenda for Thursday's FCC meeting, a posting on the FCC's website said. The order would extend the deadline for LPTV and translators to transition to digital, authorize LPTV stations to take advantage of the FCC's auction software to find new homes after the auction, and would include rules for channel sharing between LPTV and translators, agency and industry officials have told us (see 1512030058). The item will also eliminate the analog tuner requirement for TVs. The item includes an NPRM that would seek comment on channel sharing between LPTV and full-power stations, officials told us.

Several public interest groups filed FCC complaints against 18 TV stations in seven markets Thursday over political ad sponsorship identification, said a news release from the Campaign Legal Center. The stations “incorrectly” identified the Independence USA PAC as the sponsor of political ads, when the PAC is largely funded by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, said the Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause and the Sunlight Foundation in the release. The groups sent a warning letter to the stations in November informing them that Bloomberg was behind the PAC, but the stations identified the ads as being paid for by Independence USA, the release said. “The Super PAC acts essentially as a personal advertising arm for Mr. Bloomberg, yet the stations failed to fully and fairly inform the public about who was attempting to influence them despite being given easily-accessible, publicly-available information, including Federal Election Commission filings regarding Mr. Bloomberg’s financing of the ads,” said the release. “Under the Communications Act, broadcasters are required to 'exercise reasonable diligence' to obtain the information needed for proper sponsorship identification,” said the groups. At the 2015 Radio Show, Media Bureau Policy Division Assistant Chief Robert Baker said broadcasters aren't required to do extensive investigations of buyers of political ads to make sure the sponsor is correctly identified. “You can rely on the person that hands you the check that they are who they say they are,” Baker said, unless someone produces “a mountain of evidence” to the contrary (see 1510020057). The Media Bureau has received the complaints and is reviewing them, a spokeswoman told us.