The Sports Fans Coalition, Public Knowledge and other public interest groups asked the FCC to investigate whether the NFL coerced broadcast networks and/or affiliates into buying unsold tickets to NFL regular season and post-season games in 2013 to avoid sports blackouts. Even though the league “grants itself all kinds of flexibility to move ticket sales deadlines or cover up seats that haven’t been sold … they still allegedly chose to coerce broadcasters into buying unsold tickets,” said David Goodfriend, chairman of the coalition. Goodfriend said the charge came from a senior professional sports executive who wishes to remain anonymous. The NFL had no comment. While the FCC doesn’t regulate the NFL, it regulates the owned-and-operated and affiliated stations of ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC, Goodfriend said Monday during a conference call with reporters to discuss the sports blackout rule. The FCC can “request that the licensees of those networks submit signed affidavits from C-level executives … on the record that respond to questions,” said Goodfriend, a lobbyist whos clients have included Dish Network. Initial comments in the FCC proceeding to eliminate the sports blackout rule were due Monday. Sports Fans Coalition and PK filed joint comments along with National Consumers League, League of Fans and Fan Freedom. The rule perpetuates a morally and economically corrupt system, Goodfriend said. The NFL and other sports leagues wishing to perpetuate the commission’s sports blackout rules bear the burden of proof that local blackouts are necessary “to maintain financial viability,” the filing said. The FCC should ask the NFL, at a minimum, to produce audited financial statements of the league and its member teams supporting the contention that local blackout policy serves the league’s financial interest, it said. The NFL threatened three of the four first-round playoff games with local blackouts in Green Bay, Indianapolis and Cincinnati, it said. “The degree of fan uncertainty, business disruption and community upheaval that the NFL’s action caused in these cities should eliminate any doubt that the federal regulations upholding the NFL’s local blackout policy do not serve the public interest and therefore, must go,” Goodfriend said. Opponents claimed that an elimination of the rules would hasten the migration of NFL games off of broadcast TV and on to pay-TV, he said. This is unlikely, he said. “As long as major advertisers like General Motors, Pepsi and Budweiser are willing to spend top dollar to reach the most households as possible and as long as the NFL games continue to be the most widely viewed programming on television, we think the league is likely to have a significant economic incentive to keep their games on broadcast.”

The FCC Media Bureau issued two protective orders (http://bit.ly/1budJb6 and http://bit.ly/1fnJsKG) in the docketed proceeding for Sinclair’s proposed buy of Allbritton’s TV stations. The public notices don’t indicate what information is being protected, but one notice pertains to “confidential” information while the other is for “highly confidential” information. Sinclair and the Media Bureau have been exchanging letters over sharing arrangements connected with the proposed deal (CD Dec 12 p5).

Bonten Media Group of New York urged the FCC not to attribute for ownership quotas joint sales agreements (JSAs). Bonten launched new services made possible by the efficiencies generated by JSAs and shared services agreements, it said in an ex parte filing in docket 10-71 (http://bit.ly/Ofn1hl). “Attribution of JSAs involving more than 15 percent of a station’s advertising time -- as the commission reportedly has been considering -- effectively would require termination of these agreements, and their related efficiencies.” Bonten and Esteem Broadcasting, based in Virginia, have been creating new local news programs and upgrading stations to HD, Bonten said. These relationships have resulted in the hiring of reporters, more hours of local news, more in-depth coverage of issues important to the stations’ viewers, “and the ability for stations to reinvest in their programming, operations and infrastructure,” it said. The filing recounts a meeting with staff from the offices of Chairman Tom Wheeler and all the commissioners.

Broadcasters want an extension of the Feb. 28 deadline to reply to the Office of Engineering and Technology’s request for comments on its proposed method of recalculating interference between TV stations and wireless signals during the post-incentive auction repacking process, according to a filing from NAB, Fox, CBS, ABC, NBC, Disney and other broadcasters (http://bit.ly/OfPljv). The requested extension would put comments due on March 31, the filing said. “Any potential changes in how inter-service interference may be calculated for the purposes of repacking should be carefully considered, and interested parties should have time to fully consider and analyze OET’s proposed methodology,’ said the filing. “The proposed methodology itself is quite complex, and analysis of the methodology and its potential ramifications is computationally intensive,” said the broadcasters. The requested extension would allow broadcasters to incorporate information from Friday’s LEARN workshop on the repacking into their comments, the filing said. “Allowing interested parties sufficient time to consider and analyze information presented during this workshop, and to incorporate that analysis into their comments, will only help ensure a more complete record in this proceeding."

New rules protecting AM signals became effective Thursday. They were approved by the Office of Management and Budget Feb. 10, the FCC said in a Federal Register notice (http://1.usa.gov/1gm3TWd). The commission last year adopted an order to create a single protection scheme for tower construction near AM tower arrays (CD Aug 19 p10). The phase-in of the rules is somewhat complex, “with some potential effects stretching over a year or two,” a Fletcher Heald attorney said in a blog post (http://bit.ly/1mf9kdr). AM stations and anyone building a structure near an AM station “should take a close look at the rules to determine their potential impact on any particular situation,” the attorney said.

The FCC shouldn’t let Gannett’s reliance on previous Media Bureau acceptance of sharing agreements keep it from finding that the Gannett/Belo deal violates media ownership rules, said Free Press, Common Cause, the United Church of Christ Communications Office and other public interest groups in a reply to Gannett’s opposition to their application for review (http://bit.ly/1bpzDMN). “The full Commission has only heard one case regarding modern sharing agreements,” said the public interest filing. “The Opposing Parties’ reliance interests are extremely limited because staff decisions are not binding precedent on the Commission when the Commission has not reviewed the staff ruling.” The public interest groups also challenged Gannett’s arguments that the FCC must wait for a rulemaking proceeding to rule on the larger issue of sharing agreements. The commission can decide the status of shared service agreements (SSAs) and joint sales agreements (JSAs) in its adjudication of the Gannett/Belo deal, said the filing. “It is black letter law that the Commission may establish policy -- and has done so -- through adjudication,” said the groups. FCC officials have told us Chairman Tom Wheeler’s office is planning to circulate proposed rules for making JSAs attributable (CD Jan 30 p1). Public interest concerns also outweigh Gannett’s and Belo’s past reliance on sharing agreements, the groups said. “Serious public interest concerns regarding diversity accompany the Opposing Parties’ SSAs, and the importance of the public interest in the Commission’s regulation of media ownership indicates that these strong concerns outweigh the Opposing Parties’ weak reliance interests."

Making TV joint sales agreements (JSAs) attributable for calculating media ownership without considering the context of other TV ownership rules is “arbitrary and capricious,” NAB General Counsel Jane Mago told FCC Media Bureau Chief William Lake, an ex parte filing recounted (http://bit.ly/OapkSI). Sharing agreements allow broadcasters to “better serve their communities” and are a “necessary response to increased competition in the local advertising market,” Mago said. BIA/Kelsey projected that online advertising revenue will increase 14 percent yearly between 2013 and 2017, while “traditional” ad rates are projected to rise .01 percent annually over the same period, said NAB’s filing. Making JSAs attributable using the same 15 percent threshold from radio would ignore “substantial differences” between the two media, Mago said: “TV JSAs are a response to direct competition from other video services and it would be highly disruptive to attribute these arrangements without broader consideration of the entire ownership rule ecosystem."

The FCC mailed 2014 equal employment opportunity (EEO) audit letters Feb. 12, the commission said Wednesday. “Each year, approximately five percent of all radio and television stations are selected for EEO audits,” said a public notice (http://fcc.us/1oTkerM). Stations that have a website and five or more full-time employees must post their most recent EEO public file report online by the public file deadline, the PN said. The list of randomly selected stations and the letter are at the bureau’s EEO headline page on the FCC website at http://fcc.us/ObkLHJ.

CEA is committed to “working with the Commission to ensure a successful incentive auction,” the trade association told officials from the FCC’s Incentive Auction Task Force, Office of Engineering and Technology and Wireless Bureau in a meeting last week, according to an ex parte letter released Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1geUNKV). CEA also “expressed support” for the pilot channel-sharing program being conducted in Los Angeles, the filing said.

Broadcasters need to “take care” to avoid ending up with “poor relations” with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, said Expanding Opportunities for Broadcasting Coalition Executive Director Preston Padden in a statement on the EOBC website Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1gRKNZR). Padden said broadcaster reactions to two recent events are “warning signs” that broadcasters’ relationship with Wheeler may be headed south. After the FCC’s announcement of expanded outreach to broadcasters on the incentive auction (CD Jan 31 p7) and after news broke that Wheeler’s office is working on a plan to tighten rules governing broadcaster sharing agreements (CD Feb 3 p11), some broadcast industry sources described both events as possible attempts to force participation in the incentive auction. “The trade press was filled with accusations and innuendo from broadcast industry sources,” said Padden, calling the idea “a suggestion as ridiculous as it was unhelpful.” The broadcast response to expanded outreach on the incentive auction “should have been ‘Thank You,'” said Padden. The idea that plans to tighten joint sales agreement rules are rooted in forcing participation in the auction is “provably false,” Padden said. Shared service agreements “and JSAs are prevalent in small- and mid-sized markets -- markets where the FCC almost certainly will NOT be buying spectrum in the auction.” Broadcasters don’t help their cause by “whispering provably false accusations of bad motives on the part of the new FCC Chair,” Padden said. “Let’s try to make this Chairman our friend."