CEA’s “R4.0” Video Systems standards development committee formed a new working group (R4WG18) on receivers for the next-gen ATSC 3.0 broadcast DTV standard, ATSC said Monday in its monthly newsletter. R4WG18 is co-chaired by Martin Freeman of Samsung and Peter Shintani of Sony, and its charter “is to develop standards, recommended practices and technical reports on receiver guidelines, profiles and characteristics in support of the ATSC 3.0 emission standard,” ATSC said. “A fast-track liaison process has been established between ATSC and CEA for the two-way exchange of important information between the two standards development organizations,” ATSC said. The point men on the liaison will be Paul Thomsen, a technology adviser to CEA, and Rich Chernock of Triveni Digital, who chairs the ATSC’s "TG3" technology group that’s leading the ATSC 3.0 development effort.

The Media Bureau seeks comment on a petition asking the FCC to rule that broadcasters can’t use last in first out pricing against political candidates, said a public notice Thursday. It seeks comment on “whether the practice of stations of deciding that particular classes of advertising time are effectively sold out discriminates against candidates -- as candidates routinely buy their advertising time late in an election cycle,” said Wilkinson Barker broadcast attorney David Oxenford in a blog post Friday. In the 45 days before a primary election or 60 days before a general election, stations can’t charge more than the lowest price charged for the same class and amount of time to the station’s best commercial advertiser for that same class of advertising time, the PN said. The notice is a response to a petition filed in September by Canal Partners Media, which wants the FCC to issue a declaratory ruling that broadcasters must treat political candidates as being the first-in advertiser regardless of when the candidate purchased airtime, the PN said. Comments are due March 2, replies March 17.

Class A and full-power TV licensees have until May 29 to have their facilities licensed for them to be protected in the post-incentive auction repacking, said the FCC Media Bureau Wednesday night in a public notice. The pre-auction licensing deadline is also the deadline for licensees to modify their licenses to fix errors made in providing the FCC with operating parameters, and to have those modifications protected in the repacking, the PN said. Along with protection in the repacking, the licensing deadline also determines what stations can participate in the incentive auction, said Fletcher Heald broadcast attorney Davina Sashkin on the law firm’s blog. ”What you have licensed (or have filed a license for) as of May 29, 2015 is what will be eligible for the auction, should you choose to participate.”

Level 3 Communications will provide video transport and end-to-end on-net services to NBC Sports and the NFL for Sunday's Super Bowl XLIX and related programming, using its Vyvx VenueNet+ technology, it said in a news release Tuesday. Level 3 will also carry pre- and postgame feeds to NFL operations centers, broadcast networks and satellite teleport sites, it said.

The FCC Enforcement Bureau fined Univision $20,000 for misusing emergency alert system tones during its Jan. 28, 2014, episode of the Luis Jimenez Show on WXNY(FM) New York, in an order released Friday. The station played EAS tones several times during a comedy sketch "in the absence of an actual emergency or authorized test of the EAS," in violation of Communications Act Section 325, the bureau said. Univision Local Media and the bureau entered into a consent decree stating that Univision will pay the $20,000 civil penalty within 30 days and implement a three-year compliance training program on EAS laws, the bureau said. Univision declined to comment. On Jan. 20, the FCC fined Viacom $1.12 million and ESPN $280,000 in a forfeiture order for using EAS tones for promoting the movie Olympus Has Fallen (see 1501200068).

More than 60 million registered users have signed up for iHeartRadio, said a company news release Friday. The digital music streaming service said it has nearly 90 million unique visitors across its network. The company’s brand awareness hit 75 percent in December, up 5 percent from the same period last year, it said.

The Association of Public Television Stations is restructuring its staff to better adopt its November strategic plan focusing on public service, public funding and public policy, said an APTS news release Thursday. APTS will create a collection of best practices for public TV, including community-based educational activities, public safety and civic leadership, it said. It will counsel stations on securing state funding, in addition to federal funding, for public TV, it said. The association also promoted two executives (see 1501220040).

Though ATSC said in its Dec. 8 call for proposals (CFP) that it has no plans “to develop the ATSC 3.0 audio system out of independent components from multiple sources" (see 1412090019), that won’t preclude the possibility that ATSC will pick multiple audio codecs for the next-gen broadcast system, ATSC President Mark Richer emailed us Thursday. "ATSC may select a single audio system or multiple audio systems for ATSC 3.0." He was reacting to a statement from DTS, one of three contestants to submit ATSC 3.0 audio proposals in response to the CFP, in which it supported ATSC picking multiple audio codecs rather than deciding on a single mandatory audio standard for ATSC 3.0. At DTS, “we believe ATSC 3.0 audio should be a multi-codec choice and not a single mandatory solution,” spokesman Jordan Miller emailed us Wednesday. Though Miller didn't say so, the statement seemed an attempt to forestall ATSC choosing Dolby or another technology as a single mandatory audio codec for ATSC 3.0 as ATSC did in picking Dolby AC-3 as the mandatory audio codec for the existing DTV broadcast system. Dolby and the "MPEG-H Audio Alliance" of Fraunhofer, Qualcomm and Technicolor were the other contestants to submit proposals in response to the CFP. “Choice, innovation and competition are important to ATSC and broadcasters, and a framework for multiple audio codecs will be key to allowing broadcasters to choose the solution that best matches their needs," Miller of DTS said. "This will ensure that ATSC can remain at the forefront of technology in the face of competing systems, and ensure consumer-electronics manufacturers are not beholden to a single, mandatory technology provider.” Miller confirmed that DTS:X, “our next generation object based audio platform, is the core component of our ATSC 3.0 submission.” For Miller, it was a somewhat more sweeping claim of the role of DTS:X in the DTS ATSC 3.0 submission than he made a day earlier when he told us only that a “portion” of DTS:X would be “leveraged” in the DTS ATSC 3.0 audio proposal (see 1501210023).

The Media Bureau granted a one-week extension on the deadline for reply comments on the rulemaking on the effect of the incentive auction on low-power TV, said an order released Thursday. Replies are now due Feb. 2, the order said. The LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition requested the extension (see 1501210033).

The deadline for reply comments on the FCC’s rulemaking on the effect of the incentive auction on low-power TV should be extended by a week, said the LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition in an ex parte filing in docket 03-185 Wednesday. Replies are currently due Jan. 26 but the coalition wants the deadline moved to Feb. 2, the filing said. LPTV commenters need the extension because of the volume of submitted comments in the proceeding and the limited resources of many LPTV broadcasters, the filing said. “This is the only time which LPTV has been and will be given to develop commentary” on its “future pre and post auction,” the coalition filing said.