Any window for FM translator applications for AM stations should be open equally to all classes of AM stations, said iHeartCommunications in a Sept.1 meeting with an aide to Chairman Tom Wheeler, according to an ex parte filing in docket 13-249. “All AM stations have been impacted by interference issues,” said the filing. Such a window “should be of a set duration and capable of quick implementation,” the filing said. Any proposal to reduce interference protections for Class A AM stations should be part of a separate process and include a further record, iHeart said.

The FCC Media Bureau should make public the data behind its proposal to offer a waiver to relocate existing FM translators up to 250 miles instead of opening an AM translator application window, said Multicultural Media, Telecommunications and Internet Council Senior Advisor David Honig in a Sept.1 meeting with staff from the bureau’s Audio Division, according to an ex parte filing. If the FCC doesn’t approve an AM-only window, it should issue a Further NPRM on the 250-mile proposal “since that proposal is not a logical outgrowth of the AM-only window proposal and the public has not had notice that the Commission is considering such a resolution,” said MMTC in the filing posted Wednesday in docket 13-249. A 250-mile waiver “could be worse than doing nothing because it creates an opportunity for larger stations to corner the market on all the remaining translators,” said National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters President Jim Winston and Fletcher Heald broadcast attorney and MMTC board member Frank Montero in a separate meeting. “Instead of expanding the universe of available translators, the waiver will expand the universe of large stations with which the smaller operators will have to compete,” the MMTC filing said.

Coherent Logix and Sinclair's One Media got FCC special temporary authority to operate an experimental facility that will use the base elements of the new ATSC 3.0 standard, One Media said in a news release Thursday. The facility will implement a single frequency network (SFN) using the new standard on channel 43 in the Washington, D.C., and Baltimore markets, it said: “The test is designed to provide real-time assessments of quality of service using the new Internet Protocol-based standard currently being reviewed by the Advanced Television Systems Committee.” The experiment is designed to prove new capabilities of broadcasting TV under ATSC 3.0, such as being able to program the same channel in adjacent markets, One Media said. “The SFN will permit broadcasters to 'zone' programming and advertising to discrete parts of a station's market using the same channel,” it said. "We now have a place to innovate, and together with our Memorandum of Understanding partners, Samsung and Pearl TV, we can bring powerful business ideas into practical demonstrations of opportunities to monetize all of our core assets,” said Sinclair Vice President-Advanced Technology Mark Aitken. The experiment's location on the “congested” East Coast helps test the new standard's capabilities under real-world conditions, One Media said. “Our demonstration should provide regulators the evidence they need to expedite these dramatic and competitive service improvements," said One Media Executive Vice President-Strategic and Legal Affairs Jerald Fritz.

​Balloting began this week on the “main elements” that will compose ATSC 3.0's physical transmission system, ATSC President Mark Richer said Wednesday in ATSC’s monthly newsletter, The Standard. If approved, those elements will be elevated to the status of a candidate standard, he said. That's significant because it will provide “a strong foundation for the industry to begin considering the launch of next-generation television broadcasting,” and will help “kickstart manufacturers to begin developing prototype ATSC 3.0 equipment,” he said. Within a month, ATSC will have a complete physical layer that manufacturers can start building to, ATSC insiders told us. The expectation is that perhaps as early as CES in January, the industry will have prototype physical devices for ATSC 3.0's transmission system available to the market, they said. ATSC will make an announcement when the ballot is voted and it’s expected that the vote on the system will pass because the companies that were involved in harmonizing ideas around a physical transmission system agreed the industry now has something that’s ready to be built, they said. CEA’s R4WG18 working group created a “gap analysis” of current and proposed ATSC 3.0 video formats for over-the-air broadcast and broadband streaming video “use cases,” said Brian Markwalter, CEA senior vice president-research and standards, in the same issue of the newsletter. From that gap analysis, R4WG18 recently reached consensus “on a lower limit for video formats that should be supported by ATSC 3.0 receivers, primarily fixed, larger screen devices, for the OTA use case,” he said, referring to over-the-air broadcasts. “With some yet-to-be-determined details, an initial list of broadband video formats has also been proposed.” The first section of the recommended practice will focus on recommended video formats for “baseline” and “advanced” fixed TVs, he said. “The final document is expected to address the audio, runtime and other aspects of both baseline and advanced ATSC 3.0 receivers.” R4WG18 hopes to complete the video formats list and give CEA’s R4 video systems committee a “progress report” at face-to-face meetings this month, he said.

The FCC should open a license application filing window for AM stations only to get FM translators, the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council and National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters told Commissioner Mignon Clyburn. Those groups and broadcasters were concerned that a draft AM revitalization order didn't include such a window (see 1508310046). "The best way to help the largest number of AM stations to quickly and efficiently improve their service is to open such an AM-only window," said a NABOB filing posted Wednesday in docket 13-249 and unavailable now due to the FCC partial IT shutdown. "Any other approach will make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for AM stations ... to obtain the translators they urgently need."

The proposals in the Low Power FM Advocacy Group's petition (see 1508180070) amount to creating a whole new FM service, said numerous state broadcast associations and full-power FM licensees in comments posted Wednesday in RM-11753. The FCC “should be reluctant to consider replacement of that LPFM service with the entirely different service that LPFM-AG proposes in its Petition,” said a group of state broadcast associations. LPFM-AG hasn't shown “a legally adequate basis for activating the Commission’s rulemaking processes to implement a wholesale redesign of the LPFM service,” the groups said. The petition would convert LPFM into “commercial FM lite,” said a group of full-power FM licensees. “In calling for co-primary status between low power and full power FM stations, the proposals run counter to unambiguous federal law,” the full-power licensees said. “The Petition is not so much a request to alter the existing rules but to establish an entirely new service divorced from the principles, protections and understandings that undergird LPFM,” said the North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia broadcaster associations in a joint filing. The LPFM-AG proposal is “fraught” with potential interference situations, said broadcast engineering firm Cohen Dippell.

Approval of a Low Power FM Advocacy Group petition “would completely upend” the LPFM model, NAB said in comments filed Tuesday in docket RM-11753. LPFM-AG proposals to allow LPFM stations to run commercials would subject them to control by businesses and increase interference risk for FM stations, NAB said. Though NAB said LPFM stations face financial challenges, the petition’s proposals are “a bridge too far,” NAB said. LPFM group REC Networks also filed comments opposing the LPFM-AG petition. “Allowing LPFM to become a commercial service would price the service out of reach of those entities it was originally intended to serve,” REC Networks said. REC said it would support more relaxed rules for corporate underwriting for LPFM , and that it wouldn’t oppose efforts to make LPFM a primary service. Such a change should be made by Congress rather than the FCC, REC said.

A startup company financed by NAB created an online engagement platform for mobile and Web content, NAB said in a news release Monday. The company, Antenna, was financed by NAB Labs, the technology division of NAB, and created tech that allows users to offer substantial feedback to online content -- “much more than just a ‘like’ or a ‘heart,’ said NAB Chief Technology Officer Sam Matheny. Fifty-five publishers are using the free Antenna platform, including Perez Hilton and Dlisted, said the association.

The FCC should “promptly” give broadcasters “regulatory certainty” about how the agency will treat channel sharing deals, the NAB said in replies filed in docket 12-268 Friday. Parties in second-generation channel sharing arrangements (CSA) should maintain their carriage rights with multichannel video programming distributors, NAB said. In its own replies, Media General agreed with NAB but said the FCC should incentivize post-auction CSAs by compensating broadcasters that enter into them for their relinquished spectrum. Exempting such stations from the multiple ownership rules could be one such incentive, Media General said.

CBS and Tegna agreed to renew station affiliation agreements for 10 markets with “more than 10 million households,” a news release from Tegna said Thursday. The Tegna stations will also participate in CBS’ digital subscription service CBS All Access, expanding the size of the service to cover 85 percent of U.S. households by the end of 2015, it said. The agreement includes renewals for Tegna-owned CBS affiliates KENS San Antonio, Texas; KHOU Houston; KREM Spokane, Washington; KTHV Little Rock, Arkansas; WFMY Greensboro, North Carolina; WLTX Columbia, South Carolina; WMAZ-TV Macon, Georgia; WTSP St. Petersburg, Florida; WUSA Washington; and WWL-TV New Orleans.