Sinclair’s court challenge of the FCC incentive auction order would deprive the broadcasters in the Expanding Opportunities for Broadcasters Coalition of the chance to participate in the auction, the EOBC said in a motion to intervene filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Wednesday. The EOBC motion seeks only to intervene against Sinclair’s challenge, not the narrower NAB filing it has been consolidated with, the motion said. CEA also asked to intervene solely against Sinclair (CD Sept. 30 p12). “EOBC member broadcasters have relied in good faith that the auction will occur under the rules adopted in the Report and Order and on the timetable set forth by the FCC,” the motion said. By asking the court to vacate or enjoin the auction order, Sinclair’s petition is a threat to the EOBC plans, the motion said. “If successful, Petitioner’s appeal will harm EOBC’s members,” the motion said.

A new electronic filing mechanism will “ultimately” replace the FCC Consolidated Data Base System (CDBS) for all radio and TV stations, with the first phase of the new Licensing and Management System (LMS) applying to full-power TV stations seeking certain permits, said a Media Bureau public notice. Full-power TVs filing applications for construction permits and applications for a license to cover a CP should use LMS, said Tuesday’s notice (http://bit.ly/YO3R6s). Those applications will be part of a new, single form “that will eventually replace all of the existing radio and TV services forms,” said the notice. All broadcaster applicants must fill out the main part of the new form, 2100, which requests general information common to all such requests, said the notice. “Information specific to particular applications will be completed on associated schedules for each type of authorization being requested.” Starting Thursday, the notice said seekers of those two types of CP-related actions must use LMS and can’t use CDBS for e-filing such applications.

Sinclair Broadcast’s Sinclair Networks division reached syndication agreements with 41 companies to distribute the company’s new college sports-centric American Sports Network, Sinclair said in a news release Monday (http://bit.ly/YHf8FF). The agreements extend distribution of ASN’s content to 67 non-Sinclair TV markets, and combined with Sinclair’s footprint, ASN is projected to reach “approximately 83 million households for select games,” the release said. Sinclair also signed a “multi-year sports rights and content development agreement” with the Western Athletic Conference, the release said. ASN’s first game, between Hampton University and Old Dominion University, aired Aug. 30, the release said. ASN also launched a website where viewers can access games (www.americansportsnet.com), the release said. The ASN syndication deals “should be significantly incremental to the top-line,” Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker said in an email to investors.

The FCC Media Bureau denied a petition for reconsideration from Kingdom of God to reinstate the license of its Class A WKGK Kokomo, Indiana. It’s clear that the station’s numerous periods of extended silence, including the most recent one that resulted in expiration of its license, “are a direct result of KOG’s own business decisions and reinstatement is not warranted,” the bureau said in a letter to Kingdom of God released Monday (http://bit.ly/1CBj1v8). The removal of the station’s tower and antenna are not persuasive arguments in support of reinstatement, it said.

The Sports Fans Coalition again urged the FCC to dump the sports blackout rule. Fans around the country are waiting for the FCC “to finally put an end to this archaic and anti-fan practice,” the coalition said Monday in a news release. The FCC is expected to unanimously vote Tuesday for eliminating the rule (CD Sept 11 p2). The vote will send a message to the NFL and other sports leagues “that the free ride they've been given by the government is over,” said the coalition, started, in part, by a former Dish Network executive.

The FCC’s recently released draft relocation reimbursement forms (CD Sept 29 p14) and the announced timeline for filing them could lead to “hiccups,” said Fletcher Heald broadcast attorney Anne Goodwin Crump in a post on the firm’s blog Monday (http://bit.ly/1rFMyjT). Because only three months are planned between the issuance of the public notice announcing channel reassignments and the date stations and multichannel video programming distributors have to turn in their cost estimates, station objections and challenges to reassignment are liable to stack up, she said. “It’s unlikely in the extreme that such a petition would be resolved before the close of the three-month period for estimates.” Stations that have reconsideration petitions granted won’t have to move, and so wouldn’t incur relocation costs. But if the three-month period is up first, they'll already have had to go to “the trouble and expense” of filing for reimbursement, she said. Crump said it’s not yet clear what happens if there are many reconsideration requests or petitions for review of the repacking: “Will it nonetheless be necessary to march full speed ahead even in the face of substantial uncertainty?"

The FCC should stay out of the debate on whether the Washington Redskins team name should be deemed a broadcast license-ending infraction, a broadcast attorney said. No current laws or FCC regulations or policies “prohibit broadcast of the word ‘Redskins,’ or any other racial epithet for that matter,” said Fletcher Heald attorney Steve Lovelady Monday in a blog post (http://bit.ly/1vrBRkT). Lovelady referred to a petition from John Banzhaf, a George Washington University professor who challenged the license of WWXX-FM Washington. The petition relies on a statute that makes it a criminal offense to broadcast obscene, indecent or profane language on radio or TV, Lovelady said. As inconsistent as the FCC’s enforcement of that provision has been, the provision “has never been held to proscribe racial or ethnic epithets,” he said. Since the term “Redskins” doesn’t have any per se sexual or excretory connotations at all, “much less any offensive ones, it would be impossible to stretch the terms ‘obscene’ or ‘indecent’ to include ‘Redskins,'” he said.

The Minority Media and Telecommunications Council asked the FCC to reverse the denial of an AM station’s request to move its transmitter site. MMTC had criticized the Media Bureau for its decision, after dissent on the decision from Commissioner Ajit Pai (CD Sept 26 p6). The request “was an elevation of dated FCC procedures over the public interest,” MMTC said in a letter to the commissioners Monday. If it’s inappropriate for the bureau’s Audio Division to take the immediate action requested in the Tell City waiver application, then it’s entirely appropriate for the full commission to speak on this important policy matter for AM broadcasters, it said. The FCC can do so by immediately reversing the decision on its own motion and granting the waiver, it said.

CEA asked to intervene in support of the FCC in Sinclair’s court challenge of the commission’s incentive auction order, in a motion filed by CEA in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Monday. Sinclair’s challenge threatens to “derail” or “delay” the incentive auction, which would harm CEA’s members, that association said. Though NAB’s challenge to the auction order was filed last month and has now been consolidated with Sinclair’s, CEA named only Sinclair as the motivation behind the motion to intervene. “Challenges to the Incentive Auction Order by broadcasters who have eight year broadcast licenses harm the FCC’s ability to ensure our wireless networks and innovations are keeping pace with our growing innovation environment,” CEA President Gary Shapiro said in a statement Monday. CEA hopes to help “inform the record” in support of the auction, Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Julie Kearney told us.

The FCC Media Bureau allotted Channel 280A at McCall, Idaho. A staff engineering analysis confirms the channel can be allotted there consistent with the minimum distance separation requirements of the rules with a site restriction 0.2 miles southwest of the community, the bureau said in an order released Friday (http://bit.ly/1uMTbzf). The bureau terminated the proceeding. The amendment to the FM table of allotments will be effective Nov. 10, it said.