Snake River Radio’s late discovery filing in its FCC administrative law judge proceeding was stricken from the record (see 2211020081) and filing deadlines in the case extended by a week, said an order posted Tuesday in docket 22-53 from ALJ Jane Halprin. Snake River’s affirmative case is now due Wednesday, the Enforcement Bureau response Dec. 9, and the deadline to request an oral hearing is Jan. 24. Snake River’s license was designated for hearing after its station KPCQ Chubbuck, Idaho, was found to have been silent for much of its license term.

The unions opposing the Standard General/Tegna deal haven’t demonstrated that the acquisition goes against the public interest or that the broadcasters misrepresented their plans, and the FCC should approve the transaction, said Standard, Tegna and Cox Media Group, which is owned by investor Apollo Global Management, in a response filing Thursday. Under the merger agreement, Standard will soon face a "ticking fee" if FCC approval isn't forthcoming (see 2210280062). The opposition from the Communications Workers of America's NewsGuild and National Association of Broadcast Engineers and Technicians sectors doesn’t protect jobs at Tegna, the broadcasters said. “The extended review resulting from the petitioners’ repeated requests for documents and delay has created uncertainty for TEGNA’s employees as they head into the holiday season,” said the filing. “If Standard General wants to prove that there are no misrepresentation issues, it can immediately release all of the documents for everyone to see,” said NewsGuild President Jon Schleuss in a news release Friday. Standard “repeatedly asserted on the record to the FCC that it ‘does not intend to reduce station-level staffing’ but its 12 major lenders apparently relied on Standard General’s financial projections showing just the opposite,” said the release. “If Standard General actually had a plan to conduct post-closing station layoffs, such plans would have necessarily involved the creation of scores of documents,” said the broadcaster filing. “Yet NewsGuild presents not a single one to support its claims.” TEGNA station employees “will be more secure in the hands of a private company that has repeatedly affirmed its intent to preserve jobs at those stations than they would be if TEGNA remains subject to the economic pressures that a public company necessarily faces,” the broadcasters said.

Low-power TV stations should be able to use to internet-based common alerting protocol (CAP) to send emergency alerts without “an expensive and outdated” emergency alert system box, said the LPTV Broadcasters Association in an email to members Friday. LPTV broadcasters “are told they are ‘primary’ to our viewers for EAS, our viewers depend on us for this information. Yet in just about every other situation, we are sternly reminded that we are of ‘secondary’ status,” said the email, which said broadcasters should give the association “input to move forward with a plan for LPTV that makes sense and serves the public with even more safety information than currently available.” The FCC’s recent cybersecurity NPRM cited results from the 2021 nationwide EAS test that showed low rates of participation among low-power radio and TV broadcasters and suggested that failure to maintain EAS equipment by some participants could be a security threat (see 2210270058). “There should be no reason that LPTV stations cannot solely use CAPS without a box,” said the LPTV Broadcasters Association. “It is our understanding that the National Weather Service does not integrate with CAPS, but they have other even more robust digital outputs that can be used. It’s time to bring this together.”

The full FCC voted 3 to 1 to approve a $518,283 forfeiture against Gray Television for violating the prohibition against owning two top-four stations in a market, said an order Tuesday. FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington was the lone dissenter. If the FCC renders “growth, acquisitions, and swaps risky enough,” prudent media businesses “will have no choice but to be passive in small markets,” Simington wrote. The forfeiture concerns Gray’s purchase of the CBS affiliation of Denali Media's station KTVA Anchorage in 2020 in a sale of “non-license assets” and subsequent shifting of the programming to its KYES-TV Anchorage -- now KAUU -- while continuing to own NBC affiliate KTUU-TV Anchorage. Gray’s “strained reading” of a 2016 rule on using channel swaps to make deals that result in one group owning more than one top-four station in a single market “would reduce competition and intentionally circumvent Commission review of such transactions,” said the order. “Gray intends to challenge the FCC’s decision and expects a complete reversal by an impartial federal court,” said Gray in a statement Tuesday. Gray violated the rules because “the affiliation acquisition it engaged in was the functional equivalent of a station license transfer,” the FCC said. The forfeiture amount is based on the amount of time of the violation multiplied by the $8,000 forfeiture amount, capped at the statutory maximum the order said. “We found that Gray failed to fulfill a continuing or persistent legal duty from consummation of the CBS affiliation acquisition on July 31, 2020 to March 3, 2021 -- 215 straight days,” the order said. “Gray anticipates that its challenge of today’s Forfeiture Order will likewise end in another strong judicial vindication of its position and another strong judicial repudiation of a federal agency overstepping its authority and failing to adhere to the rule of law and protect the public interest,” Gray said.

The National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters voted to discontinue NABOB’s support of the proposal to allow geotargeted radio, said an ex parte letter posted in docket 20-401 Monday. Some NABOB allies and members condemned the vote in a statement released GeoBroadcast Solutions, including Roberts Radio CEO Steve Roberts and Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet President Robert Branson. “Clearly this action is yet another in a string of savage actions NAB has taken in the interest of its largest members,” said the statement, which also included National Newspaper Publishers Association CEO Benjamin Chavis and JAM Media CEO Jonathan Mason. Roberts is a founding member of NABOB, according to GBS. “We believe the FCC will recognize the source behind today’s action. The FCC should reject this cynical effort and keep its eye on the prize of enabling innovative technology to small and medium-sized broadcasters,” said the release. "This statement is preposterous," said an NAB spokesperson. "As GBS continues to rapidly lose supporters, it’s clear it’s looking for a scapegoat instead of at its own failure to convince any critical mass in the industry that its product is viable and would do anything to help broadcasters." "We have overwhelming support from minority broadcasters and are confident that the FCC will recognize that geo-targeting for broadcast radio is in the public interest," said a GBS spokesperson. NABOB had been among the most vocal advocates for the geotargeted radio proposal, and met with FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks to advocate for the change as recently as Sept. 16. “Given the potential benefits to small, minority owned broadcasters as well as small businesses, and the advancement of localism, and our view that the record in this proceeding is complete, I urged the Commission to adopt the proposal as soon as possible,” wrote NABOB President Jim Winston in a Sept. 20 ex parte letter. Winston didn’t comment Monday. NABOB’s website doesn’t list its board membership. "It is unfortunate that the record in this proceeding has become polluted with so many over-the-top ad hominem attacks," wrote Branson in an ex parte letter filed Monday. "The pleading climate matters. Surely investors in massive and innovative new technologies must be wondering, as they observe this docket, 'do we really want to spend money on businesses that must face such an ugly and time-consuming gauntlet of disparagement at the FCC?'"

CTC Media Group agreed to pay an $8,000 forfeiture for operating WECU(AM) Winterville, N.C., at reduced power without permission and originating programming on its translator, according to an order and consent decree in Monday’s Daily Digest. The FCC Media Bureau learned of the matter via an informal complaint that WECU “had been off the air for months.” CTC told the FCC WECU had been operating at reduced daytime power and it had been originating content on the translator, the consent decree said. CTC also didn’t provide station logs requested by the FCC. Along with the $8,000 payment, CTC agreed to implement a compliance plan and make regular compliance reports to the FCC for three years.

The FCC should amend its rules on in-band/on-channel (IBOC) digital audio broadcasting to allow for higher digital FM power levels, said a non-docketed petition for rulemaking from NAB and Xperi posted Wednesday. The agency should “adopt an updated formula to determine FM power levels for stations seeking to exceed the currently authorized FM digital ERP of -14 dBc,” which would allow “more stations to increase digital power above the existing -14 dBc level, without the need for separate FCC authorization,” the petition said. The change would improve digital FM coverage and digital FM signal penetration of buildings while “continuing to minimize the probability of harmful interference to adjacent channel stations,” the petition said. Wednesday’s petition “dovetails” with a 2019 request from NAB, Xperi and NPR to permanently authorize FM radio stations to utilize IBOC with asymmetric sideband power levels, and the two petitions should be combined into a single rulemaking, NAB and Xperi said.

Seven TV stations in Kansas' Wichita-Hutchinson market began broadcasting with NextGen TV this week, they said Wednesday. KAKE Wichita (ABC), KWCH-DT Hutchinson (CBS), KSAS-TV Wichita (Fox), KSNW Wichita (NBC), KPTS Hutchinson (PBS), KSCW-DT Wichita (CW) and KMTW Hutchinson (DABL) launched following a decade of development and months of planning by the local stations, they said. KSCW-DT, owned by Gray Television, and KMTW, owned by Mercury Broadcasting, have converted to ATSC 3.0 transmissions and are broadcasting their own programming, plus that of the other participating stations.

The FCC identified tentative selectees in 32 groups of mutually exclusive applications for noncommercial educational FM construction permits from the November 2021 NCE window, said an order Wednesday. The selectees include Christian Broadcasting’s application for Soldotna, Alaska; Priority Radio’s application for Cabot, Arkansas; and Ethree Group’s application for Key Colony Beach, Florida. The bureau made the choices using an analysis based on which applicant would cover the largest area and population, and favors applicants with fewer other radio authorizations, the PN said. Petitions to deny the applications of the selectees are due 30 days after the order.

“There’s no point in relitigating this matter,” said a spokesperson for GeoBroadcast Solutions of a 2009 settled lawsuit against GBS founder Chris Devine over one of his previous broadcast businesses (see 2209230070). The legal dispute, which is listed as having been dismissed, but the plaintiff and NAB say was settled out of court, has been repeatedly raised by NAB in the geotargeted radio proceeding (see 2210210050). The matter was “long ago resolved” and the “conclusion of the litigation speaks for itself,” the spokesperson said.