The FCC Media Bureau extended the comment period for the proceeding on facilitating the final conversion of low-power TV and TV translator stations to digital service. The bureau extended the period by two weeks, with initial comments due Jan. 12, replies Jan. 26, the bureau said in an order released Monday. The extension is in the public interest because the original comment dates fall after a major holiday, it said.

A consent decree between the FCC Enforcement Bureau and Newport Television is couched in terms of privacy regulation, indicating privacy issues are now a high priority for the commission, a broadcast attorney said. Newport Television was ordered to pay $35,000 for broadcasting a phone conversation without informing one of the parties the call would be televised (see 1411280044). Privacy is a subject of interest to other government agencies, and the FCC's interest “promises one more place where businesses can look for trouble should they [not] respect the privacy of those with whom they interact,” said Wilkinson Barker attorney David Oxenford in a blog post. Print reporters routinely call sources for information about issues that they're investigating, and then write reports based on those calls, he said. The station could use the statements made by the person who is called "just as would a print journalist if the call’s contents were reported by the station’s own staff rather than played from a recording," he said. “But the FCC seems to be saying that there is an extra level of privacy expectation in the use of the other party’s voice itself.” The FCC phone call rule applies to TV and radio, but it seems to apply more forcefully to TV, said a Fletcher Heald attorney. The TV licensee was fined $35,000, while historically violations on the radio side tend to draw penalties of about $4,000, said broadcast attorney Harry Cole in a blog post. Cole also said an application to sell the station was pending when the complaint was submitted: “Even if you have stopped being a licensee, the FCC will likely hold you responsible for transgressions that occurred while you were still a licensee.”

Newport Television will pay a $35,000 civil penalty for broadcasting a phone conversation without informing one of the parties that the call would be on TV, the FCC said in a news release Friday. The penalty is part of the terms of a consent decree between Newport and the Enforcement Bureau, the release said. It's based on a 2012 incident involving Newport's KTVX Salt Lake City, the consent decree said. “Broadcasts of telephone conversations without such notice are prohibited by the FCC's Telephone Broadcast Rule and threaten the privacy and reputation of consumers whose telephone conversations are broadcast to the public without their knowledge or consent,” the news release said. Newport also “hampered” the FCC investigation by “failing to fully respond to communications from Bureau staff,” the consent decree said. Under the terms of the settlement, Newport admits the violations, the release said.

Public television organizations urged the FCC to avoid character word count restrictions in free-text fields, to use prior cost estimates to auto-populate values for revised estimates and actual costs, and to take other steps when designing the TV broadcaster relocation fund reimbursement form. Web-based forms can run the risk of unintentionally impeding accurate reporting, “creating unnecessary redundancies, and imposing significant burdens on station staff,” said the Association of Public Television Stations, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS in comments filed Wednesday in docket 12-268. “Explanations for cost estimate calculations and other responses may require lengthy descriptions.” Limiting responses in free-text fields to a certain word count “could unintentionally prevent stations from providing complete and accurate responses,” they said. By using prior cost estimates to auto-populate values for revised estimates, stations wouldn’t need to re-enter information on the form that hasn’t changed and could simply supplement prior estimates with any addition documentation, they said. The organizations also asked the FCC to clarify reporting responsibilities for jointly owned equipment, they said.

Representatives of Pandora Radio and the company that owns the South Dakota radio station that Pandora has been seeking to buy (see 1410030046) met with Maria Kirby, aide to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, Monday, said an ex parte filing posted in docket 14-109 Wednesday. Pandora and KXMZ (FM) Box Elder owner Connoisseur Media urged "expedition" in deciding on Pandora's request for a waiver of the commission's foreign broadcast ownership rules. The commission should move quickly to decide the matter since it has been pending a year and a half, Connoisseur and Pandora said.

The Department of Justice reached a settlement agreement with Nexstar Wednesday that will allow the broadcaster to complete its proposed buy of Communications Corporation of America, pending FCC approval, according to a DOJ news release. As part of an agreement first announced in August (see 1408060049), Nexstar will sell WEVV-TV (CBS and Fox) Evansville, Indiana, to African American-owned Bayou City Broadcasting. Without the divestiture, Nexstar “would have gained a dominant position in broadcast television spot advertising in the Evansville, Indiana area, resulting in higher prices to advertisers,” DOJ said. The Nexstar-CCA transaction is valued at around $270 million according to DOJ, while WEVV will sell for $18.6 million, Nexstar said in August.

The FCC Media Bureau proposed a $6,000 fine against Prime Time Christian Broadcasting for the failure by its KRPV-TV Roswell, New Mexico, to file children’s TV and quarterly program lists on time, said a notice of apparent liability issued Tuesday.

Tom King, president at Kintronic Labs, is continuing to press proposals to help fix the AM band at the FCC. He offered proposals last month in a letter to the commission, and also met with FCC staff, he emailed Monday night. "Our emphasis on more regulatory action regarding noise sources in the AM band, minimum technical standards for AM receivers and AM station synchronization have been well received by all of the FCC Commissioners and staff to whom we have made our presentation." King plans to take the proposals to Congress, he said. Some engineers opposed King's proposal for mandated AM receiver standards (see 1411240058).

The Minority Media and Telecommunications Council urged the FCC to continue finding new ways to advance diversity by considering the race-neutral proposals before the commission. The FCC should “make diversity, diverse ownership, and diverse participation a policy priority in every aspect of its decision making process,” MMTC said in an ex parte filing posted Friday in docket 14-50 on the 2014 quadrennial review. The FCC should encourage more diverse participation in every communications platform, “as we cannot predict where future opportunities will necessarily arise,” it said. The filing pertains to a meeting this month with Media Bureau staff. The National Hispanic Media Coalition urged the FCC to retain or tighten existing media ownership rules as a race-neutral way “to preserve or create ownership opportunities for new entrants, including women and people of color,” NHMC said in an ex parte filing in the same docket. It urged the commission to continue seeking and analyzing data about broadcast ownership by women and people of color and the impacts of such ownership.

The FCC Media Bureau used inaccurate information outside the record in its denial of Voice for New Jersey’s petition to deny a license renewal application (see 1408110046) to the Fox-owned WWOR-TV Secaucus, New Jersey, the group told aides to commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Mignon Clyburn in a meeting last week, according to an ex parte filing posted in docket 07-260 Monday. The bureau compared WWOR’s coverage of local news to other stations despite that comparison not being in the record, VNJ said. Doing so “denied VNJ due process” by introducing evidence without letting VNJ respond, said the group. The comparison also incorrectly reported that WWOR covered as many “New Jersey-centric” news stories as other local stations, VNJ said. "The numerous issues of concern to the 3.5 million residents of northern NJ could not begin to be covered by WWOR’s inadequate coverage,” VNJ said. The full commission should reverse the bureau's decision to grant WWOR’s renewal, said VNJ.