Comments are due May 16, replies May 31, in docket 22-146 on Gray Television’s channel substitution request for WMC-TV Memphis, said the Federal Register Thursday. Gray is seeking to change the station from Channel 5 to 30.

ATSC is taking its annual member meeting and NextGen Broadcast Conference “on the road” for a June 7-9 run at the Westin Book Cadillac in Detroit, said President Madeleine Noland Wednesday. The event customarily is held late May in Washington’s Reagan Building. This year’s conference will feature a private-access “strolling dinner” reception June 8 at the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation in Dearborn, she said. The in-person conference will also have a virtual component, as did last year's when it was rescheduled in late August, said organizers. Michigan has three markets on the air with ATSC 3.0 services, they said -- Detroit, East Lansing and Grand Rapids-Kalamazoo.

The FCC should “deepen and broaden” its inquiry into how changes to the kidvid rules affect the accessibility of children’s programming, said Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and numerous other accessibility consumer groups in an ex parte meeting Friday with staff from the Media Bureau, Disability Rights Office and Governmental Affairs Bureau, per an ex parte filing posted Wednesday in docket 18-202. The agency should act “not only to ensure that the children’s programming rules do not funnel programming to contexts where captioning and description are not required,” but also to “ensure more generally that all children’s programming is accessible.” With video programming converging, “drawing distinctions in the application of accessibility rules on the basis of antiquated technical distinctions” is “not a tenable long-term strategy,” said the groups, which included the National Association of the Deaf, the Hearing Loss Association of America and the Technology Access Program at Gallaudet University.

The FCC Media Bureau is seeking comment on a pair of channel substitutions, said two NPRMs Wednesday. In docket 22-150, Maine Public Broadcasting is seeking to switch WCBB Augusta from Channel 10 to 20, and in docket 22-151 WVEC Television wants to switch WVEC Hampton, Virginia, from 11 to 35. Comments on both will be due 30 days after Federal Register publication, replies 45.

The FCC should let ATSC 3.0 “substantially similar” requirements sunset July 17, 2023, as is currently scheduled, said Pearl TV representatives, including Managing Director Anne Schelle, in a call Thursday with an aide to FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington, according to an ex parte filing in docket 16-142. Markets that are further along in 3.0 deployments than others, such as Phoenix and Detroit, “should not be artificially constrained from offering new, beneficial programming,” said Pearl. “Broadcasters have every public interest and economic incentive to continue to provide their programming in ATSC 1.0 to their audiences who still have ATSC 1.0 sets,” said Pearl. “The ‘substantially similar’ requirement is not driving that decision today, and the sunset of the requirement will not change those incentives.” Getting rid of the requirement would let broadcasters run a demonstration channel of 3.0 programming to be a “barker” to attract new viewers, Pearl said. “Pearl understands that the Commission will consider the issue of the sunset more fully later this year, and urges it to keep these points in mind at that time,” the filing said.

Hybrid ATSC 3.0 streaming video service Evoca-TV and emergency alerting company Digital Alert Systems have developed a method for transmitting broadcast emergency alerts to viewers watching programming via the internet, said an Evoca news release Monday. “Because the Evocasolution is both an over-the-air and an over-the-top system, we’re able to deliver alerts directly to the viewer,” said Evoca’s Michael Chase, vice president-systems. Evoca’s receiver “can insert emergency alert information right on top of programming being watched by a viewer, regardless of what that channel happens to be,” the release said. The method is “a unique solution” that works because Evoca “controls both the transmission and reception of signals that reach the viewer,” for users of its service, the release said. The two companies are going to continue studying the matter, the release said.

Several iHeartMedia-owned stations didn’t violate FCC rules by ceasing carriage of ads in 2020 from a write-in political candidate who the stations said was taking advantage of the rules to get stations to air his content, said the Media Bureau in an order in Monday’s Daily Digest. Jim Condit, who was running for the House in Ohio’s 2nd congressional district “failed to make a substantial showing of his bona fide candidacy, and therefore was not a legally qualified write-in candidate under the Commission’s rules,” the order said. WKRC(AM) Cincinnati and WLW(AM) Cincinnati initially accepted Condit’s ads and ran them for three weeks before suspending the broadcasts and asking Condit for additional evidence of his qualifications. Condit told the FCC the suspension was censorship and based on the content of his ads. The order doesn’t contain descriptions of the content of the 2020 ads, but in 2018 Condit made headlines for running campaign ads that described the owners of media organizations as “billionaire communist jews.” Condit’s showing that he was a real write-in candidate included campaign pamphlets from previous election years and no campaign events held in the district in which he was running, the Media Bureau said. “We do not find that the activities in which Mr. Condit claims to have engaged within the 2nd Congressional District -- handing out business cards at undisclosed locations on unspecified dates as Mr. Condit went about his daily life -- constitute efforts that would reasonably support a substantial showing of bona fide candidacy,” the order said. There's no evidence the suspension of the ads was related to content, the order said. Condit didn’t comment.

Sinclair is encouraging its employees and viewers to recycle household batteries at a Batteries Plus location or through their local municipalities under its “Sinclair Green” promotional campaign running through April in honor of Earth Month, said Sinclair Thursday. Each of more than 700 Batteries Plus locations will accept up to five pounds of household batteries and recycle them free of charge for residential customers in April, it said. Batteries Plus estimates more than 3 billion batteries are thrown away across the U.S. in an average year, said Sinclair.

It's “past time” for the FCC to conclude the 2018 quadrennial review, NAB President Curtis LeGeyt said in meetings with Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, Media Bureau Chief Holly Saurer and Commissioner Geoffrey Starks this week, said an ex parte filing posted Thursday in docket 20-401. NAB “understands the potential challenges of completing the review without a full complement of commissioners” but said the agency should act “as soon as possible after a full Commission is seated or even sooner if that process does not conclude in the near term,” the filing said. The trade association said it doesn’t oppose an FCC proposal to collect broadcaster employment data, and the agency should have “a well-defined plan” for analyzing the equal employment opportunity data “so the process is not in vain.” LeGeyt also urged the agency to act quickly on ATSC 3.0 multicasting and “move on” from a GeoBroadcast Solutions proposal to change the FCC’s booster rules to allow for geotargeted radio. “The only beneficiary of approving this proposal is the company whose technology is at issue,” NAB said.

The FCC Media Bureau approved the license renewal applications of Wiseman Media's WZYX(AM) Cowan, Tennessee, and two translators over objections that the translators were broadcasting to the substantially same area, said an order and consent decree in Wednesday’s Daily Digest. Triangle Access Broadcasting argued that one or more of the renewal applications should be denied, but the Media Bureau ruled the matter moot after granting a minor modification request from Wiseman to fix the overlap. The consent decree requires Wiseman to implement a plan to comply with online political file rules, the order said.