PMCM plans to pursue its must-carry complaint against Time Warner Cable "until we are universally carried on Channel 3 throughout the New York market," CEO Robert McAllan said in an email Tuesday in response to a TWC opposition to the complaint in docket 16-27 (see 1602090043). McAllan said TWC's carriage of WJLP Middletown Township, New Jersey, is problematic because it's carried only on its starter tier and not on every other tier like every other commercial station in New York. He also said TWC's program and system information protocol/over-the-air arguments in the opposition were inconsistent and "if PSIP is our 'channel' then the FCC has to deal with the pesky prohibition in the Spectrum Act that specifically prohibits involuntary changes in 'channels.’”

Starting March 31, stations can no longer use the Children's Television Online Filing System (KidVid) for filing or amending children's TV programming reports, and instead must use the FCC's Licensing and Management System (LMS), the agency said in a public notice Tuesday. The link to filing KidVid reports will be disabled, it said. The KidVid change is part of the FCC updating application filing systems, it said.

FCC precedent is clear that a DTV station's virtual channel assignment -- not its RF channel assignment -- is the relevant channel number for deciding the station's on-channel cable position, Time Warner Cable said in an opposition posted Tuesday in docket 16-27 to a must-carry complaint. PMCM last month filed must-carry complaints against TWC, Service Electric Cable TV and RCN Telecom Service over carriage of its WJLP Middletown Township, New Jersey (see 1601210044). In its opposition, TWC said WJLP has no right to carriage on cable channel 3, as it seeks, and TWC's placing it elsewhere is well within the FCC 2008 order on cable operators' post-digital transition responsibilities. Since the digital transition, TWC said, viewers see Program and System Information Protocol channel numbers rather than RF channel numbers as representing a station's "over the air" channel number. Thus, it said, PMCM's "over the air channel" is channel 33, which corresponds to WJLP's virtual channel, while TWC's carriage of WJLP on cable channel 1239 reflects PMCM's demanding carriage on a cable channel other than one on which it has a right to carriage, meaning it was up to TWC to choose a channel for WJLP. PMCM didn't comment.

The FCC’s proposal to preserve a vacant channel in each market for unlicensed use after the incentive auction would have a “negative and disproportionately devastating impact” on multicultural programming and minority station ownership, said the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council in a letter to the FCC Sunday. Low-power TV has been a very successful venue for minority TV station ownership and multicultural programming, and the vacant channel proposal will “potentially extinguish” it, MMTC said. The FCC has “downplayed” the impact of this proposal by claiming most markets will have two vacant channels after the repack, MMTC said. The FCC should consider the vacant channel proposal’s impact on minority programming and ownership, and the mandate from the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the FCC assess the impact on minority ownership of changes to its rules, MMTC said. “The public interest” requires the FCC to abandon the vacant channel proposal, MMTC said.

FCC action to block Class A owner Latina Broadcasters from participating in the incentive auction and reject appeals from Class A's Fifth Street, Video House and WMTM is believed “imminent," said letters from Latina's owner to Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel posted in docket 12-268 Monday. The FCC repeatedly has said in filings that Latina would be able to participate in the auction, but the commission is now taking action to block Latina after the appeal from the other Class A cited Latina as being similarly situated to Video House, WMTM and Fifth Street, which didn’t meet a 2012 deadline for Class A's to be eligible (see 1601250060.) “I understand that my business, my significant investment of time and money in that business, and my dream of serving the Hispanic community with targeted programming are in jeopardy because of an imminent action by the FCC that will essentially erase all that I have worked toward,” said Nora Crosby Soto in her letters to the commissioners.

The FCC should use “great care” in replying to GAO requests for information about the incentive auction’s impact on low-power TV, Free Access and Broadcast Telemedia said in an ex parte filing Friday. FAB has requested similar information from the commission through a Freedom of Information Act request. “The GAO and the Comptroller General have significant authority to seek out and obtain all agency facts, trends, and analyses available from any agency on behalf of Congress under the Congress' Constitutional and the GAO's added statutory authority,” FAB said.

The Association of Public Television Stations and PBS lobbied FCC officials to exempt noncommerical educational stations' low-power TV outlets from an FCC-proposed vacant channel demonstration requirement in any communities that lose NCE service because of the incentive auction. "As the Commission acknowledges in the rulemaking, most of the 'vacant' television channels after the auction will be available precisely because it is not possible to operate a full-power television station on such channels without causing harmful interference to other full-power stations," said an APTS and PBS filing posted Tuesday in docket 12-268. On the agency-proposed NCE full-power exemption from the vacant channel demo requirement to be for a community without such service due to the auction, it should apply to a community of license, not a designated market area, executives from the groups reported telling FCC Incentive Auction Task Force Chairman Gary Epstein and Vice Chairman Howard Symons and Office of Engineering and Technology and Media Bureau officials.

The FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau set a March 3 deadline for comments on a variety of petitions for exemptions from closed captioning requirements, the bureau said in a public notice Tuesday in docket 06-181. Petitioning the FCC are White Media Ventures for its show Conversations with Andre Whitehead, National Asian American Coalition for Owning a Piece of America, The Marvin Show for its program of the same name, and Dove Broadcasting for Nite Line and Beverly Exercise.

With the “new capabilities” of ATSC 3.0, terrestrial broadcasting “is poised to become an essential part of the next-generation content delivery network,” ATSC President Mark Richer said in the February issue of ATSC’s monthly newsletter, The Standard. “By leveraging broadcasters’ highly efficient one-to-many architecture and Internet protocol transmission, ATSC 3.0 will enable new over-the-air services such as 4K and HDR, immersive audio and targeted advertising, mobile TV and advanced emergency alerting.” CES “previewed how ATSC 3.0 will usher in the future of broadcast" TV, he said. At the NAB Show in April, “we expect to see real-world demonstrations of even more ATSC 3.0 capabilities,” he said. “With the lion’s share of the standard completed and remaining items, like audio and interactivity, wrapping up in the months ahead, we’re on target to finalize the entire suite of ATSC 3.0 standards for next-gen broadcasting this year.”

Latina Broadcasting wouldn't have “renewed investment” in its Class A station if the FCC hadn't consistently maintained that WDYB-CD Daytona Beach, Florida, would be protected in the TV incentive auction, Latina Broadcasting said in informal comments filed Monday in docket 12-268. Latina is concerned the FCC could revoke its protected status as the result of arguments made by Videhouse and other Class A stations that aren't protected in the auction (see 1601250060). “Latina urges the Commission to avoid disturbing its prior determination to afford WDYB protection in the Incentive Auction and repacking process,” said the filing.