The FCC Media Bureau proposed a $16,000 fine for a low-power TV station that operated at lower power levels at the recommendation of FCC staff but without formally filing for permission, said a notice of apparent liability in Friday’s Daily Digest. After conversations with FCC staff, Abacus Television’s WIIC-LD Pittsburgh began operating at lower power levels to avoid interfering with a nearby full-power station, the NAL said. The broadcaster never filed a required application for special temporary authority. “Abacus points to its mistaken belief that the informal conversations with and suggestions by Division staff were sufficient given the temporary nature of the operations and that a formal filing would be ‘unnecessary’ and ‘wasteful,’” said the NAL. The bureau declined to reduce the proposed fine because Abacus has a history of past violations, the filing said. Abacus “claims its apparent violation was the result of ‘misjudgments and distractions,’” said the NAL. “It is well-settled that such factors are not an excuse for failure to comply with the Rules.”

Two House members wrote to Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell seeking answers about removing AM radio from electric vehicles. “We seek more clarity on the specific threats this poses” to the emergency alert system “and what FEMA is doing to ensure the EAS can continue to carry out its vital role,” said the letter Thursday from Reps. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., and Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J. “Especially given the growth in sales of EVs, it is vital for FEMA to make clear the negative impacts that lacking access to AM radio will have on public safety infrastructure.” The letter asks if FEMA did anything to dissuade removing AM radios, and how that removal would affect alerting systems. “America’s local radio broadcasters look forward to continued engagement with Administrator Criswell and her senior team to address this short-sighted decision by some automakers,” said an NAB news release on the letter.

Comments are due June 5, replies June 20, on Border International Broadcasting's petition asking it be allowed to have 100% indirect foreign ownership, the FCC Media Bureau said Thursday. The petition comes as the owners of BIB, which is licensee of WLYK-FM Cape Vincent, New York, are seeking to transfer ownership to a Delaware corporation ultimately owned by Canadians, the bureau said.

AM radio "is critical" to parts of rural America without reliable cellular or broadband access, such as farmers needing weather updates, the National Association of Farm Broadcasting told Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., Thursday, urging her to press automakers to not drop AM radio from vehicles. Noting Ford plans to not offer AM radio in its noncommercial vehicles starting next year, NAFB said automakers not offering AM radios in vehicles "will put into serious jeopardy an important lifeline and source of information to rural America, not just during times of emergency events but every single day."

Gray Television signed a rights deal with the Phoenix Suns and Phoenix Mercury basketball teams to deliver locally broadcast games to 2.8 million viewers for free using a combination of broadcast TV and streaming, said a news release Friday. That would triple the teams’ reach compared with their previous distribution over a regional sports network, the release said. All Suns and Mercury non-national exclusive games will be broadcast between Gray stations KTVK Phoenix, Arizona, and low-power station KPHE-LD Phoenix, the release said. KTVK will air 13 Mercury regular season games and all available post-season games, with the remaining regular season games airing on KPHE. Viewers will also be able to watch games through a streaming option via a Suns or Mercury branded app for smartphones and Smart TVs, the release said. The 2023 Phoenix Mercury season will stream direct to consumer for free, the release said. “The agreement is subject to the approval of the NBA and WNBA and any required resolution with the incumbent regional sports partner,” the release said. The first Phoenix Mercury game will air live on KTVK and be simulcast on KPHE May 25.

The FCC’s proposals to update the foreign-sponsored content rules (see 2301250067) exceed the agency’s authority, said representatives of NAB, Fox, NBCU, Gray Television and the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council this week in meetings with aides to Commissioners Nathan Simington and Brendan Carr, according to an ex parte filing posted Thursday in docket 20-299. Requiring broadcasters to obtain certifications from programming lessees is a burden on broadcasters and will clutter the FCC’s online public inspection files with useless documents, the broadcasters said. “We cannot conceive of a single public benefit from littering stations’ online public files with thousands of certifications stating that innumerable local entities -- churches, family-owned businesses, and high school football programs -- are not agents of Russia or China,” the broadcasters said. If the FCC goes forward with the proposals, it should clarify the rule doesn’t apply to ads for commercial products and services, and limit the public file requirement to instances where a lessee is a foreign governmental entity, the broadcasters said. The agency should also exclude religious and local programming from the rules, they said.

The FCC’s “unprecedented” actions on Standard/Tegna “raise serious concerns about the future of ALL broadcast transactions which may have a profound impact on broadcast viewers,” wrote NAB CEO Curtis LeGeyt in a blog post Thursday. “Every industry under the regulatory microscope of the FCC should be asking themselves if they are next” said LeGeyt. FCC staffers “who are not accountable to the public” as commissioners are “should not be allowed to make a final determination sending a multi-billion-dollar transaction to the gallows,” said LeGeyt. The Standard/Tegna deal showed the FCC’s 180-day shot clock is an “illusion,” and long delays in merger reviews keep companies from making needed operational changes, he said. The agency’s public interest review standard is too “amorphous” and allows the FCC to justify actions using “ad hoc concerns unrelated to its mandate,” the blog post said. “Ensuring that a given transaction complies with the FCC’s rules should be the primary focus of merger review, rather than allowing for arbitrary demands that fall outside the FCC’s oversight,” LeGeyt said. The agency’s handling of the review “has exposed the flaws in the current system of transaction review, and it is our hope that FCC will reverse course and correct this miscarriage of justice.” The FCC released an order Thursday memorializing Administrative Law Judge Jane Halprin's ruling Wednesday (see 2304260066) putting the transaction's hearing proceeding on hold until June 1.

The FCC shouldn’t extend broadcasters’ waiver of the 2013 audible crawl rule without gathering more information on NAB’s efforts to implement audible crawls or setting specific benchmarks for implementation, said the American Council for the Blind and the American Foundation for the Blind in comments posted in docket 12-107 Tuesday. “We are concerned that outreach related to this waiver petition is being performed to check-the-box and will continue to prove insufficient for finding or developing a solution to this problem,” said a joint filing from the consumer groups. Compliance with the 2013 rule requiring broadcasters to provide audio description on a second audio stream of emergency information conveyed through graphics was originally required by 2015, but the agency granted an 18-month waiver and has repeatedly extended it (see 2304100058). NAB requested a two-year extension for the current waiver, which expires May 26. In comments posted Tuesday, the Society of Broadcast Engineers backed NAB’s request. “The technology for automated audio description of a dynamic image simply does not yet exist to permit broadcasters to effectively and efficiently abide by the non-textual component of the Audible Crawl Rule,” said SBE. The FCC should determine whether NAB has reached outside the broadcast industry to technical experts in AI and emergency alerting, the consumer groups said. “Without proactive outreach and engagement by broadcasters to the technology sector” a solution ”will not materialize and consumers with disabilities will never receive full and equal access to emergency alert information.”

FCC Administrative Law Judge Jane Halprin continued the FCC’s hearing proceeding on Standard/Tegna until June 1 -- effectively pausing it -- and denied broadcaster requests to limit additional discovery, said attorneys representing both sides in the case. Halprin made the ruling at a status conference at the FCC Wednesday that had been set to determine the deal’s schedule, attorneys said. The Standard/Tegna broadcasters requested an accelerated hearing schedule with no additional discovery (see 2304200060), but Halprin denied that request Wednesday. Standard General didn’t comment on the ruling, but the Standard/Tegna broadcast parties have steadfastly said the deal can’t be extended past May 22 due to the expiration of financing that can’t be replaced (see 2304180074). With a quick hearing out of reach, the FCC's reversing itself and voting the deal is likely the only road left to the broadcasters, attorneys said. The broadcasters are expected to try to put pressure on the agency through Congress, multiple attorneys said. “Until more recently, this summer, we never had a lobbyist in D.C.,” Managing Partner Soohyung Kim said last week at the NAB Show. “Now we are employing like half of D.C.” In a news release Wednesday, Standard General highlighted remarks from Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., Tuesday saying he won’t support FCC nominees “if they are unwilling to support diversity -- including by acting in a way that denies a vote to a diverse applicant.” FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks -- the only commissioner yet to take a public stance on the deal -- is likely soon to be up for renomination. In a joint statement Wednesday, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, National Action Network, the National Urban League and UnidosUS urged the FCC to hold a commission vote on the deal. “As FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks said in a recent speech on diversity in media: ‘We need to do better,’" the release said. “We will not call on the Commissioners to cast their votes one way or the other. But what we do demand is fair and equal treatment,” the civil rights groups said. “And, so far, ‘fair and equal treatment’ has not been the order of the day.” Starks didn’t comment.

The FCC Enforcement Bureau issued 16 notices of illegal pirate radio broadcasting to landowners in the New York City metro area for apparently allowing illegal broadcasting from their property, the agency said Tuesday. It said fines of more than $2 million could follow if it determines the property owners continued to allow pirate broadcasts. It said the notices were to properties identified by field agents as pirate broadcast sources during the bureau's 2022-2023 sweeps of the New York areas. Applauding the notices, NAB said pirate operations "interfere with both licensed broadcast stations and air traffic control systems. In recent years, reductions of FCC field enforcement led directly to increased pirate activity and required Congressional action to provide the additional tools necessary to effectively combat these illegal operators by placing liability on the landowners who facilitate them. With full funding of the 2020 PIRATE Act now in place, NAB looks forward to regular enforcement sweeps that will help maintain order on the public airwaves.”