The FCC Media Bureau seeks comment on a draft form to be used by broadcasters and multichannel video programming distributors to apply for reimbursement for expenses caused by relocation after the incentive auction, said a public notice released Thursday (http://bit.ly/1pwKpRS). The form (http://bit.ly/1xq0EsO) contains blanks for those affected by relocation to estimate eligible expenses incurred documenting actual costs, and the information needed to set up a Department of Treasury account to receive payment. The form is intended to be submitted electronically and will include a final version of the catalog of eligible expenses that was previously released for comment by the bureau, the PN said. “The comments we receive will assist us in designing a form that facilitates the reimbursement process for all parties, while also ensuring that we are efficient stewards of limited reimbursement funds, and guarding against waste, fraud, and abuse.” The bureau seeks comment on what data on the form should be considered confidential. The amounts distributed from the fund to each broadcaster and MVPD will be public, but other data could be treated as confidential, the PN said. Eligible entities will file the form within three months after the FCC releases a PN announcing channel reassignments, and that’s when estimates will be submitted along with plans to buy new equipment or modify existing equipment, the PN said. Reimbursement funds will be initially allocated based on cost estimates, though applicants will need to set up Treasury accounts before the three-month deadline to receive them, the PN said. Broadcasters and MVPDs will submit updated reimbursement forms with cost documentation “each time they seek reimbursement for an expense against their allocation,” the PN said. “This process will allow entities to use federal funds to pay their expenses as they are incurred.” A final form is submitted “upon completing construction or by a specific deadline prior to the end of the three-year reimbursement period to be announced by the Media Bureau, whichever is earlier.” Stations with outstanding expenses by that deadline will provide a final accounting of expenses “upon completing the transition, even if this occurs after the end of the reimbursement period,” the PN said. The FCC is seeking comment prior to submitting the form to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), after which there will be another opportunity for public comment, the PN said. Comments on the form are due Oct. 27.

Disney re-launched its Watch ABC services with enhanced social sharing features for a more personalized experience. The new features include “FastShare,” “Social Lens” and “Multi-Cam,” Disney said Thursday in a news release. FastShare allows viewers to access and share clips of “in-show moments, all while staying within the viewing experience in the app,” it said. Social Lens integrates users’ Facebook and Twitter profiles in the Watch ABC app, and Multi-Cam offers exclusive access to backstage cameras during live events, Disney said.

The Association of Public Television Stations urged the FCC to resolve issues of reallocating broadcast spectrum before it deals with a rulemaking request from NPR to end TV Channel 6 protections. Consideration of withdrawing protections for broadcasters on Channel 6 would be “premature, particularly in light of the commission’s contemplation of potential plans for spectrum reallocation ... to support wireless broadband services,” said an APTS opposition in RM-11579 posted Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1sqesCr). Three full-power public TV stations are on Channel 6, as are “dozens of translators licensed or utilized by public television stations,” it said. NPR petitioned the FCC for a rulemaking in 2009.

With pay-TV subscribers who pay retransmission consent fees in slow decline, broadcast network owners are forced to become far more aggressive financially, a BTIG Research analyst said. Some networks are taking over their affiliates in NFL cities, analyst Richard Greenfield said Tuesday in a blog post (http://bit.ly/1pbHL4S). Fox now captures 100 percent of retrans dollars and “can use its owned and operated heft and power in National Football Conference markets to drive retrans to new highs” as it negotiates with multichannel video programming distributors, he said. Fox bought CW and MyNetworkTV stations in Charlotte and didn’t renew its affiliation agreement with WCCB Charlotte, owned by Bahakel (CD April 19/13 p21). Bahakel was left to take the CW affiliation in Charlotte, Greenfield said. Bahakel has to squeeze whatever little retrans it can out of an affiliation “that comes with no major sports rights or meaningful programming leverage,” he said. Fox reportedly is looking to transform the Tribune-affiliated Seattle station into a Fox-owned and operated station, he said. Like Charlotte, Seattle is an NFC market, he said. It’s a reminder that all the power in broadcast TV resides with the network, and that “networks are increasingly taking the economics of broadcast TV back from the affiliates,” Greenfield said. “The affiliates are helpless, left to settle for whatever economics their broadcast parents are willing to allow them to have (for now).” Fox had no comment.

There’s no evidence of foreign influence over Pandora and the FCC can’t find that it’s in the public interest to deny its application to acquire a KXMZ(FM) Box Elder, South Dakota, said the company in meetings with aides to all FCC members and staff from the Office of General Counsel, according to an ex parte filing posted Monday in docket 14-109 (http://bit.ly/1qqhZJh). Because it’s a widely held public company, Pandora is “unable to establish the identity, let alone the nationality of the majority of its shareholders” who have chosen to take advantage of SEC privacy rules, Pandora said. The company had asked the FCC to permit it to buy the station even if it’s up to 100 percent foreign owned (CD Sept 3 p5). The company’s leadership is almost entirely U.S. citizens, and the only shareholder that owns more than 5 percent of Pandora’s stock is a U.S. entity, the filing said. It said Pandora believes its foreign ownership is “likely in the 15-17 percent range."

Fox and the creators of Family Guy and The Simpsons should remove a joke about rape from the shows’ upcoming crossover special, said Parents Television Council in a news release Monday (http://bit.ly/ZadJbO). “It is simply indefensible for a broadcaster to use the publicly-owned airwaves to make tasteless and senseless jokes about rape,” said PTC President Tim Winter. “Never. But, particularly in light of our nation’s growing concern for high-profile cases of domestic abuse.” PTC will be taking steps to oppose the jokes’ inclusion, including contacting the sponsors of the crossover special set to air Sunday, warning families not to watch it and contacting Fox affiliates to ask how broadcasting rape jokes “can possibly serve the public interest as required by their FCC-issued broadcast licenses,” PTC said. There was no immediate comment from 21st Century Fox.

The Prometheus Radio Project asked that its petition for a ruling requiring the FCC follow the diversity requirements of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals be uncoupled from other court challenges to the FCC 2014 quadrennial review Further NPRM, said a motion filed in the U.S Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Friday. Such rulings, called Writs of Mandamus, are sometimes used to compel agencies to take specific actions. The D.C. Circuit is already considering a motion from Prometheus to move the consolidated court challenges to the quadrennial review and the commission’s joint sales agreement attribution rule to the 3rd Circuit (CD Sept 10 p22), but the mandamus request should be considered separately, said Georgetown Law Institute for Public Representation Senior Counselor Andrew Schwartzman, who represents Prometheus. That venue change is under consideration by a D.C. Circuit merits panel, but the order shifting the matter to the panel was silent on the mandamus issue, Schwartzman said. The mandamus request should be shifted to the 3rd Circuit regardless of what happens to the other parts of the case since it concerns that circuit’s remand to the FCC that “the Commission failed to collect the data or conduct the studies necessary” to meet the Third Circuit’s requirements, said Prometheus’s filing

The FCC rule change making stations involved in joint sales agreements attributable for ownership limit calculation purposes will damage broadcasters’ ability to serve the public and doesn’t take the current media market into account, said FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai in a Broadcasting & Cable op-ed Monday (http://bit.ly/1uegLbA), co-authored with House Commerce Committee member Rep. Billy Long, R-Mo. “States such as Missouri stand to lose the most” as a result of the new joint sales agreement (JSA) rules, said the op-ed. Long and Pai cited stations owned by Sinclair that are “going dark” under the new rules, and said the same is possible for similar stations in Missouri. “Without those JSAs, the end result will be fewer television stations and less news and weather programming for residents of Southwest Missouri -- especially during emergencies,” said Long and Pai. “That’s why it’s time for the FCC to reverse course on JSAs."

WPXS Mount Vernon, Illinois, again said it will apply for Channel 11 if it’s allotted, in comments in docket 14-139 (http://bit.ly/1uMeiny). WPXS petitioned the FCC to authorize it to substitute Channel 11 for Channel 21 (CD July 23 p19). If authorized, WPXS will build the station promptly, it said. Initial comments are due Oct. 14.

The FCC Media Bureau denied a waiver request from Way Media in Colorado for a minor change to FM translator station W218CR, Central City, Kentucky. The bureau won’t let Way Media change the station’s frequency from Channel 218 to Channel 279, or move its transmitter to a new site in Tell City, Indiana, it said Friday in a letter to Way Media (http://bit.ly/1qS8SaD). The bureau also dismissed a request filed by Way Media and Hancock Communications for consent to assign WTCJ(AM) Tell City from Way to Hancock, so the translator station could rebroadcast WTCJ’s signal. The parties fail to identify any special circumstances in this case “that would warrant a deviation from the general rule,” it said. Commissioner Ajit Pai said he’s disappointed in the bureau’s decision. Granting the waiver would have made it easier for AM stations to obtain FM translators, he said in a statement (http://bit.ly/1uMnOaq). “Today’s decision highlights the need for the Commission to take immediate action to help AM radio."