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.

There were 11.5 fewer hours of TV-PG prime-time broadcast programming in 2014 than in 2011 during a two-week study period, the Parents Television Council said in a release Wednesday. “Our data shows a near 20 percent decrease in the number of TV-PG rated shows that have been shown on primetime broadcast TV within a three-year period. ... We urge the broadcast networks to change course and consider the important family audience in 2016 and beyond.”

Quarterly revenue doubled in the smart TV segment at Sigma Designs, CEO Thinh Tran said on a Tuesday earnings call. For Sigma, which was the first system-on-a-chip (SoC) supplier to “natively” support Dolby Vision high dynamic range (HDR) in 2014 (see 1409040067), the smart TV business “is continuing to show strength as our ecosystem of partners continue[s] to expand,” Tran said. In response, “we are designing to twice the number of TV models for next year that our smart TV SoC will ship into,” he said. But Sigma also has lingering doubts that 4K content delivery will develop quickly into a meaningful business, Chief Financial Officer Elias Nader said in Q&A. The “deployment infrastructure required for 4K is still going through its infancy,” Nader said. There “certainly” are “plenty of TV sets at dramatically lower prices for 4K, and certainly there is a wide array of 4K set-top boxes prepared to deploy and being deployed at this point in time,” he said. But “really the holdup comes back to” content providers, and their inability “to not only encode 4K content efficiently, but also then to distribute it on their networks,” he said. “And frankly I think the latter is the part that will take a little bit of time. So I would say it’s probably not going to be this coming year that we see any major rollouts, so maybe the end of next year, in 4K content.” Nevertheless, in TVs, as Sigma moves into 2016, it sees 4K growing to account for 60 percent of its SoC business, Nader said. Moreover, “nearly all” the 4K SoCs Sigma sells will be "HDR-enabled, I think, for next year,” he said.

Nexstar reached “an impasse” in negotiations to buy Media General, Nexstar said in a release Wednesday. Media General’s board rejected Nexstar’s revised proposal to buy the company at $16.31 per share, Nexstar said. Media General responded with a counterproposal that works out to $18.61 per share, Nexstar said. Nexstar CEO Perry Sook called the counteroffer “unrealistic” and “unreasonable,” the release said. “We will only consummate a transaction that makes sense for both companies’ shareholders,” Sook said. “Time is of the essence and further delays in reaching reasonable terms for a transaction could impact the value creation we outlined at the time we announced our original proposal,” he said. “Media General shareholders will be disappointed with their Board’s unreasonable negotiating position,” and Nexstar will “urge Media General to engage with us to reach a transaction on reasonable economic terms,” Sook said. “Our Board remains open to discussing and reviewing an improved proposal from Nexstar that would appropriately value the Company,” Media General said in its own release Wednesday. Media General asked Nexstar for its “best and final proposal” in a letter Monday, the Media General release said. “Rather than providing a revised proposal and continuing private negotiations, we are surprised that Nexstar issued today’s press release reiterating its previous proposal which our Board had already unanimously rejected,” Media General said. “It is unclear from Nexstar’s press release if its current proposal is indeed its best and final proposal,” it said. “The Board of Directors of Media General continues to recommend the proposed transaction with Meredith.”

AT&T and Tegna reached a new multiyear carriage agreement that will keep Tegna stations on DirecTV and U-verse with no interruption, Tegna said in a news release Friday. Tegna's 46 stations reach a third of U.S. households, it said.

ATSC President Mark Richer sees 10 more ATSC 3.0 ingredients moving to candidate standard status this month, he said in the December issue of ATSC’s monthly newsletter, The Standard, published Monday. The new candidate standards will include those of “major elements” of ATSC 3.0, among them video encoding, Internet protocol transport, electronic service guides, second-screen services and closed captioning, Richer said. He expects ATSC will “finalize the few remaining” candidate standards for audio, security and interactive capabilities in early 2016, he said. The candidate standard phase of ATSC 3.0 “is not a time to take a breath,” Richer said. It’s “a critical time for broadcasters to implement test services and for professional and consumer equipment manufacturers to fine-tune their prototypes and demonstrate the capabilities of ATSC 3.0,” he said. “And it’s the time for all stakeholders to work together on any necessary clarifications to the standards documents to assure interoperability.”

An FCC proposal to require noncommercial education stations to use restricted-use FCC registration numbers on reports used to gather information about media ownership will “contribute nothing useful to the FCC’s picture of diversification,” said 70 public TV stations in a filing opposing the measure in docket 10-234. “Persons reported on NCE ownership reports are not ‘owners’ of broadcast stations as that concept is understood by the FCC and the Courts,” said the filing. “Collection and retention of this information with commercial broadcast ownership information will taint the value of such information.” Having to submit personal information and digits from their Social Security numbers will put NCE board members at risk of identity theft, the stations said. “This is particularly true given that the federal government has been repeatedly shown over the last year to be abjectly incapable of protection of stored personal data,” the filing said. “The FCC’s proposal as it would apply to NCE stations is bad policy and legally unsupportable.”