The Copyright Royalty Board should “start anew” in setting licensing fees for broadcast radio streaming services so the rates reflect a “willing buyer and willing seller” standard, said NAB in a news release Tuesday (http://bit.ly/ZRpxjB). The CRB requested comments on rates and terms for webcasting statutory licenses to be set for Jan. 1, 2016 to Dec. 31, 2020. The comments were due Tuesday. Because many broadcasters don’t make money from streaming services, a “significant rate reset is necessary so that streaming can be a viable business that will allow broadcasters to provide streaming services to the audiences that rely on them and benefit from them,” said NAB in comments (http://bit.ly/1vRoFH6). “SoundExchange is seeking an increase in the per-performance rate, as well as a rate structure that requires services to pay the greater of that per-performance rate or a flat percentage of revenue,” it said in a news release Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1yNGzOS). “Streaming is becoming the preferred path to access music, and webcasting rates must reflect this market and economic reality,” said SoundExchange CEO Michael Huppe in the release.

The FCC Media Bureau admonished KOB-TV for violations of rules on commercial content in children’s TV shows and its website address rules at three of its stations in New Mexico, said an order released Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1xmh3vt). KOB Albuquerque and satellite stations KOBF Farmington and KOBR Roswell displayed the website www.lazytown.com during the closing credits of the kids’ program, LazyTown, the order said. “While the commercial matter may have been inserted into the program by the Stations’ television network (NBC Network) or programming source (Sprout), this does not relieve the Stations of responsibility for the violations.”

The FCC Media Bureau proposed a $16,000 fine against Studio 51 Multi Media Productions, licensee of WMNO Bucyrus, Ohio, said a notice of apparent liability released Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1vLap1T). WMNO filed a license renewal application late, operated without a license after its authorization expired, late-filed children’s TV reports for eight quarters, didn’t report the late filings in its renewal application, and didn’t file its 2011 biennial report “in a timely manner,” the NAL said.

Despite FCC release of market-by-market price estimates for broadcaster licenses, it’s unlikely that “strategic commercial broadcasters” will participate “meaningfully” in the incentive auction, said Wells Fargo in an “Incentive Auction Guide” emailed to investors Tuesday. That’s because the estimates are “highly variable” and could be too high, Wells Fargo said. Though there are stations in smaller and mid-sized markets “where the spectrum value perhaps could exceed enterprise value,” the auction’s unclear tax implications could be “a complicating factor for those broadcasters that have a large capital gain,” Wells Fargo said. The AT&T-based $1.50 per MHz POP estimate used to make the estimates is a “reasonable assumption,” but the amount of spectrum changing hands in the FCC model is “optimistic at this point,” Wells Fargo said. Wells Fargo said “$45 billion is a fairly hefty number for what is essentially a four player world (five, if we include DISH).” The lack of certainty about broadcast participation makes it hard to predict how much wireless companies could spend in the auction, a problem exacerbated by possible auction delays that could be caused by the court challenges to the auction from NAB and Sinclair, Wells Fargo said. “It is difficult to predict the financial flexibility of all four carriers two years from now, given the changing competitive dynamics."

Claiming that the FCC will review a petition challenging the license of the Washington Redskins’ flagship radio station says nothing about the petition’s merits or how the commission might rule, said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler Sunday in a letter to the editor posted on www.latimes.com (http://lat.ms/10Gp6bY). Wheeler said he finds the Washington NFL team name “offensive” and believes “it would be appropriate for the team to adopt a new name.” But “my personal views are just that -- personal -- and should not be perceived as an indication on how the commission will or won’t act,” he said, responding to an editorial on the news site stating the FCC has no business regulating a football team name (http://lat.ms/1q5q6Lq).

The full FCC should reverse the Media Bureau’s decision to dismiss complaints that the then-Allbritton-owned ABC affiliate WJLA-TV Washington, D.C., and Sander’s KGW-TV Portland, Oregon, violated online political file disclosure rules, said the Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause and Sunlight Foundation in an application for review filed Thursday. The groups filed the original complaints that the TV stations had incorrectly reported the entity sponsoring political ads (CD Sept 5 p16). The ads were paid for by super PACs that received “essentially all their funding from a single donor, making that person the ’true sponsor’ of the advertisement,” the groups said. “However, neither station disclosed on-air the name of that single donor, thus violating the Communications Act and the Commission’s rules.” The Media Bureau dismissed the complaints for not showing that the stations had evidence that the sponsor wasn’t the super PAC. The bureau-level decision was wrong, the groups said. “The Communications Act and the Commission’s rules explicitly place the reasonable diligence requirement on broadcasters, not the public.” The delegated authority decision “shifted the broadcasters’ burden of reasonable diligence to the public, releasing broadcasters from any obligation,” the filing said. It said the full commission also should clarify that the public is not required to present evidence to the station prior to filing with the agency.

NAB and Sinclair filed a proposed joint briefing schedule for their court challenges of the FCC incentive auction order that would have final briefs in the case being filed in January, in a filing in U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Friday. Since all parties agree the case should continue to be heard on an expedited basis, oral argument in the matter would likely take place soon after the final brief is filed, an attorney experienced in such cases told us. The schedule would allow for the cases to be argued “ahead of the incentive auction, which the FCC hopes to complete by mid-2015,” the joint filing said. Under the briefing schedule, NAB and Sinclair would brief their cases separately, with NAB raising issues about the commission’s protections of broadcasters and OET-69, while Sinclair will argue that the commission violated the law through its incentive auction rules and by requiring displaced licensees to cease operating on their old channels within 39 months of the auction even if their replacement facilities aren’t usable, the filing said. It said the FCC doesn’t object to the proposed schedule.

Sinclair and Nexstar have the most spectrum portfolio value as a percentage of equity among broadcasters eligible for the incentive auction, said Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker in an email to investors Thursday. The valuation is based on the market-by-market price estimates of spectrum in the reverse portion of the incentive auction released by the FCC Wednesday (CD Oct 2 p1). Ryvicker also analyzed the data calculating the value of broadcast spectrum if each broadcaster involved in a duopoly were to put the spectrum of one of its dual channels up for auction while preserving the content through multicasting, as has been done by Sinclair (CD May 30 p1). Ryvicker called the money such a maneuver would generate “hidden spectrum value,” and found that Nexstar and Media General have the highest “hidden spectrum value,” according to the FCC estimates.

Pandora’s proposed buy of KXMZ(FM) Box Elder, South Dakota, doesn’t raise any concerns of foreign control over U.S. broadcasters, said the company in reply comments posted Tuesday in docket 14-109 (http://bit.ly/1mVRelg). The proceeding concerns Pandora’s petition for a declaratory ruling that would allow it to buy the station without proving that it isn’t foreign-owned (CD July 2 p6). The only objections to the deal have been raised by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, and ASCAP “did not suggest in any way that the small amount of foreign ownership in Pandora may influence or control Pandora’s programming or operation of KXMZ,” Pandora said. ASCAP’s objections are “speculative” and concern music licensing rights that are “outside of the Commission’s primary jurisdiction,” Pandora said. Pandora seeks to buy KXMZ to qualify for the same publishing royalty rates as broadcasters to better compete with services like iHeartRadio’s similar service (CD June 17/13 p16). Pandora’s buy of the station will serve the public interest by providing “broadcast programming that is highly customized to KXMZ’s local listeners,” by allowing listener tastes to select the station’s content, Pandora said. Allowing the foreign ownership rules to block Pandora’s purchase “would be inconsistent with the Commission’s objective of facilitating new entrants, and promoting the investment of new capital, into the U.S. broadcast market,” Pandora said. “Pandora’s petition for declaratory ruling is ripe for Commission action and is soundly supported by public interest benefits.”

Correction: The date when a filing was posted from the Association of Public Television Stations urging the FCC to deal with reallocating broadcast spectrum before addressing a request to end TV Channel 6 protections was in December 2009 (CD Sept 25 p17).