The LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition joined NAB as an associate member to protect low-power TV and TV translators in the incentive auction and repacking process, the coalition said in an email Friday. It also will work with NAB to see if the ATSC 3.0 standard will be developed before 2016, so LPTV broadcasters can use the standard during the post-auction repacking process, it said. The FCC is closely monitoring the development of the ATSC 3.0 standard (see 1502250051).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit denied a writ of mandamus sought by PMCM against the FCC Friday, according to a court order. The writ would have directed the FCC to rescind the suspension of operating authority for PMCM's WJLP-TV Middletown Township, New Jersey. PMCM wants the station to be allowed to use virtual channel 3.1, which is opposed by the owners of the station currently using channel 3, Meredith Corp. The Media Bureau issued an order suspending WJLP's operating authority while it holds a notice and comment proceeding on the matter, and PMCM failed to show it needed relief, the court said.

Cox Media and TubeMogul are partnering to create a cross-device video advertising initiative to give marketers a new way to reach local and regional consumers, a news release from Cox Media said Friday. The partnership offers programmatic digital video ad inventory alongside local TV inventory across many screens including mobile, tablets and on traditional TV sets. The service is available to marketers in all of Cox’s designated market areas.

The FCC seeks comments on EchoStar’s petition for a waiver of over-the-air analog tuner requirements, the Media Bureau said in a public notice Thursday in docket number 15-47. EchoStar wants the waiver to market “a new model of SlingLoaded HD, Internet-enabled, digital video recorder” that doesn’t include analog tuners, said its waiver petition filed Thursday. The bureau and the Office of Engineering and Technology previously said the "all channels" provision meant any TV receiver that includes over-the-air digital tuners must include over-the-air analog tuners, EchoStar said. Comments are due March 12, replies March 19.

The FCC Media Bureau denied Gray Television’s request for a waiver of the network nonduplication and syndicated exclusivity rules to allow it to exercise exclusivity rights against West Virginia stations WOWK-TV Huntington and WVAH-TV Charleston, an order issued Wednesday said. Gray had argued that WOWK and WVAH are no longer significantly viewed in Parkersburg, where it owns stations including WTAP-TV. Gray submitted Nielsen survey data showing WOWK and WVAH didn’t meet the requirements for significantly viewed, but the stations’ licensees and cable operator Suddenlink said Gray’s surveys were using incorrect ZIP code data. “Parties opposing the Petition have raised legitimate questions regarding the zip codes used to prepare the Nielsen data that support the Petition,” the bureau said.

The FCC should require broadcast executives to sign an ethics statement before the TV incentive auction, pledging not to engage in collusion on selling their licenses, said Jim Snider, president of iSolon.org, in a filing at the FCC. The statement should hold them responsible for reporting any such behavior to the FTC or FCC if they detect violations outside their company, he said. Snider said broadcast executives have every incentive to engage in price fixing, and it would be difficult to detect. Snider made the filing in docket 12-268.

The National Religious Broadcasters approved a resolution opposing "a power grab of the Internet" by the FCC, NRB said in an email Tuesday. NRB urged the commission to reject Communications Act Title II reclassification of broadband. The commission's net neutrality and Title II plan will "send a poor signal to nations that have or are considering more state governance of the Internet," encouraging "repressive regimes that would like an international body like the International Telecommunications Union to have increased authority over the Internet," said the association.

The FCC Media Bureau Video Division issued several admonitions Tuesday to KMCB, Coos Bay, Oregon; KMTR, Eugene, Oregon; and KOGG, Wailuku, Hawaii, for failing to comply with the commercial limits in children’s programming, in dockets 15-246, 15-248 and 15-250. The stations showed URLs during advertisements for several seconds or less, violating the commercial limits, the bureau said. The Children’s Television Act of 1990 limited the amount of commercial matter that commercial TV stations can air during children's programming to 10.5 minutes per hour on weekends and 12 minutes per hour on weekdays, the bureau said. The commission also restricts showing web addresses during children’s programming, it said.

The Federal Aviation Administration dropped its proposal of the regulation of FM stations, said a letter posted at the FCC Jan. 28 in docket 12-338. The FAA is no longer pursuing its proposed frequency notification requirements for FM stations operating in the 88.0 to 108 MHz band, it said. The Fletcher Heald law firm blogged about the letter Wednesday.

The FCC Media Bureau’s rejection of the pending quadrennial review order as a reason to grant a waiver of the newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership rule requested by a Fredericksburg, Virginia, newspaper owner is inconsistent with a previous waiver granted to Fox and shows why the Fox waiver should be reversed, said the Rainbow PUSH Coalition and United Church of Christ in an ex parte filing posted in docket 07-260 Wednesday. The bureau said the pending media ownership proceeding didn’t constitute justification for a waiver to let Free Lance-Star License own a paper and a radio station in the same city, UCC and RPC said. The licensee was granted a temporary 12-month waiver that the bureau said would likely not be renewed, UCC and RPC said. The bureau has said the Fox request has unique circumstances that don’t apply in the Fredericksburg case, but UCC and RPC disagreed. “Fox’s permanent waiver request had been pending through ten years and two court remands of the relevant standard,” the bureau said in the order on the Fredricksburg waiver request. “The Bureau has applied post-hoc justifications for treating Fox differently that do not appear anywhere in the order granting Fox’s indefinite waiver,” said the ex parte filing. “We ask that the Commission act promptly to reverse the Media Bureau’s decision.”