Dish Network and Turner Broadcasting agreed to extend a carriage agreement restoring Turner channels to Dish's lineup. Dish subscribers lost the channels last month, including Boomerang, Cartoon Network and CNN, due to a carriage negotiation agreement (see 1410210064). The companies had no further comment, Turner said in a news release Friday.

The FCC voted unanimously Friday to issue a rulemaking notice seeking comment on allowing broadcast stations to inform viewers about the substantive terms of contests over the Internet rather than over the air. “The proposed change would allow broadcast stations to meet their disclosure obligation by providing contest information over the air, as they do today, or by posting that information on an Internet website,” said an FCC release on the NPRM. The item proposes rules that would require broadcasters to announce the website address where the contest information is located each time they mention a contest over the air, and would allow stations to use any public website to provide the information if the station itself or its licensee doesn't have a website. The item would “ease the burden” on broadcasters, Commissioner Ajit Pai said. The proposed change was suggested in a blog post by Commissioner Mike O'Rielly (see 1411060048).

Changes to the definition of a multichannel video programming distributor to include over-the-top video services should include rule changes to promote localism, NAB said in an ex parte filing posted in FCC docket 12-83 Wednesday. OTT services should “limit the geographic scope of their offerings” consistent with the scope of the retransmission consent rights they negotiate and FCC exclusivity rules, NAB said. The FCC should also take “swift action” on proposals to revitalize AM radio, NAB said. “Modifying the Commission’s rules to effectuate technical and policy changes will enhance AM signal quality and promote the continued viability of AM radio broadcasting."

LG is playing a big role in the kickoff event this Sunday in Washington of the "Broadcast TV Liberation Tour" to trumpet consumer awareness of over-the-air DTV reception through an antenna, the company said in a Tuesday announcement with co-sponsors TVFreedom.org and antenna and accessories merchandiser AntennasDirect.com. The kickoff event runs 1-5 p.m. at Washington’s Eastern Market, the promoters said. "All the way back to our Zenith days, LG has been a big believer in terrestrial broadcasting around the world," John Taylor, LG vice president-public affairs, told us Wednesday when we asked what’s in it for LG to take part in the event. "We view this as part of our efforts to support broadcasting and to help educate consumers that there’s lots of ways to get digital signals today, and one of the best is free, over the air." LG will contribute a 42-inch LCD TV as a contest giveaway at the event, but its "larger role" will be to provide the dozen large-screen Ultra HD and 1080p TVs "around the room," Taylor said. "Each of them will have an antenna attached to it. So that’s 12 different channels so attendees can really understand how much diverse programming and the excellent picture quality you can get over the air. It’s for consumer education more than anything else."

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit should deny a writ of mandamus filed by broadcaster PMCM TV in order to keep broadcasting on Virtual Channel 3.10, said the FCC in an opposition filing Tuesday. The Media Bureau had ordered PMCM’s station WJLP-TV Middletown Township, New Jersey, to stop broadcasting on that channel while it considers a proposal to allow the station to share a Program and System Information Protocol with Meredith Corp.’s WFSB Hartford (see 1410200057). WFSB uses RF Channel 3, and the subchannels attached to a radio frequency channel are commonly understood to belong to the broadcaster that holds that RF channel, several broadcast attorneys have told us. On Nov. 10, PMCM filed an application for review of that order with the FCC and asked for an emergency stay, and also filed a writ of mandamus request with the D.C. Circuit the same day, according to court documents. In response, the bureau stayed its own order until Dec. 1 “to permit orderly briefing” and suspended the briefing schedule on PMCM’s application for review, the FCC’s filing said. The FCC order doesn’t cause harm to PMCM because the FCC authorized it to broadcast on virtual Channel 33. Though PMCM had argued that the shift would be confusing to viewers, the FCC disagreed. “The magnitude of such confusion -- for a station that has been on the air just since September 30 -- may be questioned,” the FCC said. “In any event, PMCM plainly has the power to mitigate such confusion by informing its audience,” the commission said. Staying the FCC’s order would “encroach” on the FCC’s authority to handle questions “best considered and resolved in the context of a notice and comment proceeding,” the commission said. “The balance of equities plainly favors the agency’s approach,” the FCC said.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is helping stations assess the opportunities from the spectrum auction identified in a report by investment banking firm Greenhill & Co. The FCC should and can establish reasonable safeguards “to mitigate unintended loss of access to over-the-air public television, upon which millions of viewers rely every day,” CPB said in an ex parte filing. A strengthened, not diminished, public media service that continues to embrace innovation “will meet the growing communications needs of our nation through the smart and effective use of over-the-air broadcasting, wireless broadband, and other online platforms,” it said. The filing pertained to a meeting with Patrick Butler, Association of Public Television Stations CEO; Patricia de Stacy Harrison, CPB president; Paula Kerger, PBS CEO; and Jarl Mohn, NPR president.

Sinclair’s petition for review of FCC rules barring joint retransmission consent negotiation should be denied, said the commission in an opposition filing in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Monday. Sinclair filed its petition in September, asking the court to overturn the FCC’s April rule barring differently owned top-four stations in the same market from jointly negotiating retrans deals with pay-TV companies. Sinclair had argued that the FCC rule change exceeded the commission’s authority and hadn’t been supported by the record in the rulemaking proceeding, but the commission disagreed. The Communications Act gives the FCC the authority to regulate retrans negotiation, and to make sure those negotiations are conducted in good faith, the FCC said. The commission pointed to filings in the record by the Department of Justice supporting the ban on joint negotiation and other filings showing that retrans prices rise as a result of joint negotiation as providing the foundation for the rule change. “On the basis of this record, the Commission reasonably concluded that joint negotiation by separately owned Top Four stations in the same market violates the statutory duty to negotiate in good faith,” the FCC said. The commission also attacked Sinclair’s argument that the FCC needed to demonstrate that the joint negotiations had violated antitrust rules to stiffen the rules. “Contrary to Sinclair’s suggestion, the Commission was not required to find a violation of antitrust law before it imposed a ban on joint negotiation,” the FCC said.

A waiver granted to Fox Television Stations to let it to own WWOR-TV Secaucus, New Jersey, and The New York Post is "unprecedented relief" because it allows Fox to extend the duration of the waiver so long as it requests a new waiver after the FCC acts on its 2014 quadrennial review, said the Rainbow PUSH Coalition and United Church of Christ in an ex parte filing posted in docket 07-260 Tuesday. Since FCC proposals for the quadrennial review don't include allowing common ownership of two TV stations and a daily newspaper, "it is a near certainty that Fox will have to request a new waiver, thereby effectively extending Fox’s conditional waiver beyond the end of the 2014 Quadrennial Review," the groups said. The FCC should "hold the Media Bureau accountable" and promote greater transparency for waivers of rules, the filing said. To do so, the bureau could release a list of all outstanding ownership waivers online, and put out public notices when licensees seek new waivers or extensions, the groups said. "Enacting these suggestions would reinforce the Commission’s current efforts in tightening compliance with the ownership rules."

Dec. 13 may be a hard deadline for Commercial Advertising Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act compliance for full-power stations that received waivers for the original compliance date of Dec. 13, 2012, said a blog post on the Fletcher Heald website by broadcast attorney Dan Kirkpatrick. Two one-year waivers were “expressly provided for by Congress in the CALM Act,” but no more than that, Kirkpatrick said. Though the FCC has the ability to issue a waiver for any of its rules, stations that aren’t yet in compliance with the CALM Act shouldn’t count on a further extension of the deadline, he wrote. When the commission updated the algorithms the CALM Act uses to calculate loudness earlier this year (see 1406050067), it emphasized stations with existing financial hardship waivers for the CALM Act will have to comply “when their financial hardship waivers expire,” Kirkpatrick said. If the FCC considers further waiver requests, it may use the stiffer standards it used in 2012 for waiver requests from companies that didn’t qualify as small businesses, Kirkpatrick said.

A Media Bureau order on WPXA-TV Rome, Georgia, moving down the dial to Channel 31 (see 1410310063) from 51 took effect Monday, said an FCC notice in that day's Federal Register. Ion Media, the station's licensee, will file a construction permit application for Channel 31 as part of the channel substitution, said the notice. It said the move will let the station "serve all viewers currently receiving digital service while eliminating any potential interference with wireless operations in the Lower 700 MHZ A Block located adjacent to channel 51 in Rome."