The Ukrainian Congress Committee of America wants the FCC to deny the sale of an AM radio station to former PBS talk show personality Travis Smiley over allegations of sexual misconduct and questions about his finances, said a filing Tuesday. Smithwick and Belendiuk attorney Arthur Belendiuk, who has represented the UCCA in other filings opposing broadcasters airing programming controlled by the Russian government (see 2204060070), emailed that Smiley is “an adjudicated sexual predator” and the FCC “must add character and financial qualification issues against Smiley.” Smiley’s company Smiley Radio Properties applied to buy KBLA (AM) Santa Monica, California, from Multicultural Radio Broadcasting Licensee. Smiley’s attorney David O’Neil of Rini O’Neil said the UCCA is using Smiley as a pawn in its efforts to attack MRBL over its ownership of a station broadcasting Russian state programming. “These allegations are preposterous, Mr. Smiley is eminently qualified to hold a broadcast license,” said O’Neil. Smiley oversees the programming at KBLA, which is currently the only station west of the Mississippi “amplifying the voices of black listeners,” said O’Neil. PBS terminated Smiley’s contract in 2018 over allegations of sexual harassment. He sued the network and a District of Columbia Superior Court jury found he had violated the morals clause of his contract. “While Smiley was not found criminally liable, his actions were so egregious as to shock the conscience," said the UCCA filing Tuesday. The FCC “needs to further investigate Smiley’s repeated sexual misconduct toward his subordinate employees to determine whether he has the necessary character qualifications to be an FCC licensee,” said the UCCA filing. In further court proceedings over the collection of the $2.6 million verdict against Smiley, PBS argued Smiley moved assets around his companies to avoid paying, and Smiley filed for bankruptcy, said UCCA. The FCC “needs to designate a financial issue to determine if Smiley has the requisite financial qualification to become a Commission licensee,” said the UCCA filing. “Mr. Smiley has nothing to do with the disagreement between these two parties and looks forward to the FCC dismissing these baseless claims,” said O'Neil.

Citing Dominion Voting Systems being granted a partial summary judgment by the Superior Court of Delaware in March in its defamation case against Fox News, former Fox Broadcasting executive Preston Padden said Thursday the FCC should question parent company Fox's character qualifications to hold broadcast licenses for its broadcast TV stations. In a Daily Beast opinion piece, Padden said the record in that case showed Fox management and Fox News personalities knew the 2020 election had not been stolen but didn't report that. "That means that the false news was presented knowingly," he said. "It is hard to imagine an issue that more directly impacts a broadcast licensee’s character qualifications." Fox Corp. and the FCC didn't comment.

Low-power television station WWOO-LD in Boston applied for an experimental license from the FCC to broadcast in 5G, it said Monday. 5G broadcasting is a method of using broadcast spectrum to transmit data that can be received by existing 5G devices, Frank Copsidas, president of the LPTV Broadcasters Association, said in an interview Saturday. Qualcomm and XGen Networks are also involved in the undertaking. 5G broadcast is an alternate method of datacasting from ATSC 3.0, which requires devices to have 3.0-capable receivers to get the signal. “ATSC 3.0 is a huge step forward for full power stations, but challenges remain,” said WWOO’s website. 5G broadcasting is more suited to LPTV stations because of interference concerns, Copsidas said. Full-power broadcasters using the technology would interfere with a huge swath of other 5G signals, whereas LPTV stations have a more reduced reach, he said. “As a broadcaster, WWOO will air one programming stream and data stream,” said a WWOO news release. “Software and apps for smartphones, tablets, and commercial receivers have been or in the process of being developed.” The application still needs FCC approval, and the test facility hasn’t yet been built, Copsidas said.

The updated low-power television and TV translator services rules adopted in April (see 2304180055) are now in effect, the FCC Media Bureau said Monday.

Claiming Entravision Holdings "apparently willfully and repeatedly violated" FCC rules on timely filings of its WJAL Silver Spring, Maryland, quarterly issues/programs lists and children's TV programming reports, the FCC Media Bureau said Monday that Entravision should pay a fine of $18,000. Entravision didn't comment.

The FCC Media Bureau blocked a Florida broadcaster from receiving an NCE license after finding it didn’t include correct ownership details in its application, said a letter in Wednesday’s Daily Digest. Key West Radio’s application listed three members of the Stebbins family as officers, but didn’t list John and Peter Stebbins, two brothers whose company 305 Community Radio was the target of a 2019 FCC investigation over operating an LPFM at an unauthorized location. In connection with that investigation, the Media Bureau required any future applications from the Stebbins brothers for the next five years to include disclosures about that investigation. The KWR application didn’t include those disclosures and didn’t name the brothers as officers of the company, but John Stebbins was listed as an officer in filings with the state of Florida in 2021 and 2022. KWR argued the listings with Florida were a mistake and the brothers aren’t officers, but the Media Bureau was unpersuaded, the letter said. The Bureau "will not allow an applicant to ‘simply disavow its duly adopted corporate articles and Bylaws, claiming extra-legal considerations, in order to avoid adverse legal consequences,” the letter said. The bureau was informed of KWR’s leadership structure in a petition to deny from Frequency Zero, another, mutually exclusive applicant for the same NCE license as KWR. With KWR out of the running, Frequency Zero is now a tentative selectee to receive a license, the letter said. The disclosure requirement for 305 Community Radio was increased to ten years, and future applications from 305 now must include disclosure of this application incident along with the 2019 information, the letter said

State Emergency Communications Committees will now be able to file state emergency alert system plans year-round, said updated guidance released by the FCC Public Safety Bureau in Tuesday’s Daily Digest. The changes will “streamline the Bureau’s review and approval process for updated plans,” the public notice said. The PN also provides guidance for SECCs on amending their EAS plans to seek approval for updated assignments on which sources stations monitor for alerts. “Previously, SECCs could file EAS Plans in [the Alert Reporting System] for review and approval only once annually,” the PN said. "Although the traditional monitoring waiver process will continue to be available, the Bureau encourages SECCs to use the newly automated EAS Plan amendment process incorporated into ARS whenever possible,” the PN said. SECCs should configure their monitoring by assigning as many EAS Participants as possible “to directly monitor (with no intermediate links) one or more sources that receive the National Emergency Message (EAN) signal directly from the Federal Emergency Management Agency,” the PN said.

The FCC identified tentative selectees in 10 groups of mutually exclusive applications for noncommercial educational FM construction permits from the November 2021 NCE window, said a unanimously approved order in Tuesday’s Daily Digest. The selectees include City of Hobbs’s application for Hobbs, New Mexico; Texas Public Radio’s application for Gonzales, Texas, and Central Baptist Church of Ocala’s application for West Lake, Florida. Petitions to deny the applications of the selectees are due 30 days after the order. After that filing period, the order directs bureau staff to do a final study of the applications and then grant them if there are no outstanding issues.

Allowing broadcasters to use software instead of physical emergency alert system equipment would reduce the down-time needed to repair malfunctions, enable the standby equipment to immediately take over if the software fails, and allow the use of equipment in redundant, geographically diverse locations in cases of large disasters, said NAB, New York Public Radio, iHeartMedia, Capitol Broadcasting and Graham Media in a meeting with an aide to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel Wednesday, said an ex parte filing posted in docket 15-94 Friday. NAB’s proposal is to make the switch to software voluntary and create systems that would still operate if Internet or cloud connectivity were interrupted, the filing said. “We are agnostic regarding the development of the desired software,” said the broadcasters. “We anticipate, and would likely prefer, that the existing trusted vendors of EAS equipment take the lead in such an effort.”

The FCC’s $518,000 enforcement action against Gray Television over the broadcasters’ buy of a top-four network affiliation (see 2305240068) could have implications for future FCC proceedings and other federal agencies, said NAB and the Free State Foundation (FSF) in amicus briefs filed with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Thursday in docket 22-14274. “Unless the Court vacates the FCC’s forfeiture order, this case could serve as a roadmap for agencies to flout due process and to abridge free speech through the arbitrary use of authority,” said FSF. The agency’s forfeiture order argued Gray violated a rule designed to prevent stations from swapping network affiliations in the same market to create new top-four combinations, but that rule had never before been interpreted in that way, and the FCC gave no prior notice its interpretation had changed, said the FSF brief. “The responsibility does not fall on private parties to guess what the agency might deem to pass muster under yet-to-be determined extensions of existing regulatory policy.” The FCC doesn’t prevent stations from creating new top-four combinations by reaching network affiliation deals with the networks, NAB said. “It makes no sense to distinguish between executing an affiliation agreement with the network, and being assigned a network affiliation agreement by another station (especially when network affiliation contracts routinely require that networks consent to assignments),” NAB said. Both NAB and FSF connected the FCC’s forfeiture order to the agency’s delayed quadrennial review of broadcast regulations. The FCC “erred in broadly applying its ownership rules,” when “the agency steadfastly refuses to complete on a timely basis the periodic reviews that Congress has mandated,” FSF said. The FCC’s interpretation of its authority over content could have implications in the that quadrennial review because MVPDs have called on the agency to limit broadcasters using multicast channels and low-power TV stations to create top-four combinations. “Given the potential consequences in other regulatory contexts, it is important that this Court in this case enforce the statutory and constitutional limits on the Commission’s power to regulate broadcast programming,” NAB said.