FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s characterization of a draft NPRM to extend multichannel video programming distributor privileges to over-the-top providers as taking away barriers that hindered innovators such as Aereo doesn’t show respect for the law, said NAB Executive Vice President-Strategic Planning Rick Kaplan Monday in a blog post. “Aereo was innovative only in its creative attempt to skirt the copyright laws,” said Kaplan. “Shouldn’t it matter to the FCC, at a bare minimum, whether content is distributed legally or illegally?” Kaplan also took issue with Wheeler's pinning Aereo’ s court defeat on broadcasters and outdated FCC rules. The barrier to Aereo’s success was the Copyright Act, Kaplan said. “Even if the Chairman could unilaterally change the FCC’s ‘old rules’ today, Aereo’s business model would still violate the law,” Kaplan said. Though NAB supports the FCC’s examination of including OTT services under the MVPD definition, “tough questions loom” about the rule change, Kaplan said. Those include “how to handle a deluge of new potential MVPDs, how to avoid further homogenizing news, weather, sports and entertainment, and how to prevent stifling new business models outside of the MVPD context,” said Kaplan. Representatives in Wheeler's office didn't comment.

FCC plans for a 2014 quadrennial review of media ownership don't include a crackdown on shared service agreements, said Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker in an email to investors. At a Wells Fargo-sponsored conference in New York Thursday, Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake told attendees that the commission is looking to gather information on SSAs rather than tighten rules, Ryvicker wrote. “The FCC understands that shared services arrangements are a benign and sometimes necessary method to improve efficiencies and cut costs (often times the only means of survival for a struggling broadcaster), and for the most part, do not pose a regulatory issue,” Ryvicker said. Though the commission may find aspects of some agreements “problematic,” the FCC “simply wants to be informed,” she said. The proposed new rules for SSAs would require registration, but not a form of approval, Ryvicker said.

The FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau granted a temporary extension from closed captioning requirements for the program Outdoorsmen Adventures. Outdoorsmen Productions has demonstrated that its compliance with the FCC’s closed captioning requirements “would be economically burdensome,” the bureau said in an order Thursday. The exemption is effective until Nov. 13, 2016, the bureau said.

The FCC should retain or tighten media ownership rules as a “race neutral” way of creating opportunity for new entrants, said the National Hispanic Media Coalition in a Wednesday meeting with Media Bureau staff, said an NHMC ex parte filing posted in docket 14-50 Friday. “The Prometheus line of cases out of the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals prevents the Commission from relaxing any rules without first analyzing the impact that such relaxation would have on ownership rates by women and people of color.” Since radio contributes to viewpoint diversity, cross-ownership rules involving it should not be relaxed, said NHMC. The FCC should begin collecting and analyzing data about broadcast ownership by minorities and women, said the group. That should include an examination of the data collected through Form 323 submissions, a resumption of collection of Form 395 equal employment opportunity data and a public release of that information, said NHMC.

The channel change of WPXS Mount Vernon, Illinois, down the TV dial from 21 to 11 is effective Dec. 15, said an FCC notice in Thursday's Federal Register. It said the move "will further the Commission’s goal of clearing UHF spectrum for new uses and allow WPXS to provide improved service to viewers." The Media Bureau recently approved the change (See 1410310063).

Chicago ABC AM radio station WLS refused to disclose the sponsor behind political ads run by Independence USA PAC despite being notified that the PAC’s sole sponsor is former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, said Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause and the Sunlight Foundation in a news release Thursday. “The Communications Act and the FCC’s sponsorship identification rules require broadcasters to go beyond simply naming the entity that paid for an ad,” the release said. WLS Chicago's listeners “were left completely in the dark as to the fact that Michael Bloomberg, hiding behind a deceptively named organization, was spending large sums of money to influence their votes and the outcome of the election,” the public interest groups said. A complaint against WLS was filed with the FCC by the groups, the release said.

The U.S. Department of Justice is seeking comment on its proposed settlement to allow Media General to buy LIN Media for $1.5 billion, said a notice in the Federal Register. The settlement agreement mirrors an agreement between the two companies announced when they applied for transaction approval, and involves Media General's divesting seven stations (see 1410300060). Comments are due within the next 60 days, the notice said.

Ratings company Rentrak agreed to a contract expansion with Weigel Broadcasting to provide local market TV ratings to Weigel stations in Chicago and Milwaukee, Rentrak said in a news release Monday. It said Rentrak already provides ratings to Weigel stations in South Bend, Indiana, and the new deal with Weigel renews that agreement.

There has been "progress" and "a lot of discussion" on high dynamic range and wide color gamut within the ATSC’s S34-1 ad hoc group assigned to write specs for the video component of the next-gen ATSC 3.0 broadcast system, said ATSC President Mark Richer in an interview. "I don’t believe there are any final decisions" on HDR and wide color gamut, Richer said. "But these are areas that the whole industry has been looking at." The "production community" has been looking at HDR and wide color gamut, as have standards groups like the ITU and the Society of Motion Picture and TV Engineers as well as CE manufacturers, he said. "There’s also other work around the world," such as at the European Broadcasting Union, "where they’re taking a look at the ramifications," he said. "The one thing I can say -- and this is not specific to ATSC -- but the industry is coming to the realization that it isn’t just about more pixels, it’s about the quality of those pixels and how we can make them better. So there’s real interest in those things, and exactly where we’re going to end up in ATSC 3.0, I really can’t say yet. But we certainly will address the issue, and we’re communicating with the other standards organizations to make sure what we’re doing complements what they’re doing."

Aereo is cutting staff in its Boston and New York offices, Vice President-Communications and Government Relations Virginia Lam emailed us Thursday. “We are continuing to conserve resources while we chart our path,” Lam said. “This was a difficult, but necessary step in order to preserve the company.” In a letter to the company's Boston employees obtained by website Betaboston, Aereo CEO Chet Kanojia said the company has been unable to obtain outside investments since the recent nationwide injunction was granted against it by U.S. District Court in Manhattan Judge Alison Nathan. Lam said the company is looking for a way to continue. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and other commission officials have recently mentioned Aereo extensively in connection with a draft NPRM on classifying linear over-the-top video services as multichannel video programming distributors. The broadcasters' case against Aereo in New York has yet to be tried on the merits, and would likely continue in some form even if Aereo were to go out of business, Fletcher Heald attorneys Harry Cole and Kevin Goldberg told us. Though not involved in the case, Cole and Goldberg follow it for the firm's blog. Though broadcasters could pursue their case even if Aereo were to go out of business, the sort of default judgments that likely would occur with a defunct defendant are unlikely to further the broadcasters' legal agenda, said Cole and Goldberg. Fletcher Heald represents broadcasters, though not in any cases involving Aereo. Lam declined to comment further on the scope of the layoffs.