Sinclair and Tornante Co., founded by Michael Eisner, are forming a joint venture to create and distribute first-run syndicated TV programs, they said in a news release Monday. Tornante-Sinclair LLC will be owned 50 percent by Tornante and 50 percent by Sinclair Television Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sinclair Broadcast, they said. The joint venture is to develop projects for the 2016 broadcast season and will be based in Los Angeles, said Sinclair and Tornante.

Gannett completed its spinoff, separating its broadcasting and publishing arms into two new companies, it said in a news release Monday. The broadcasting company is called Tegna (see 1504210034). The publishing company retains the Gannett name, the release said. The “new Gannett” is “the largest and most diversified publishing company with a portfolio of 92 domestic media markets, Newsquest, a leading UK regional news publisher,” and USA Today, the release said. “The new Gannett will be virtually debt-free with a highly focused operational strategy and significant flexibility to make strategic acquisitions.”

The FCC should lower the amount by which prices in the reverse auction decline between rounds, the Expanding Opportunities for Broadcasters Coalition said in an informal comment filed in docket 12-268 Monday. The FCC proposed dropping the prices for broadcasters as much as 5 percent in each subsequent round, and making that “decrement” subject to change based on bidding activity. Instead, the FCC should fix the reverse auction bidding decrement at 1 percent of a station’s opening price, in each round of the reverse auction, EOBC said. “A 5 percent reduction in the initial rounds of the auction is far too large,” EOBC said. “Changing the decrements during the auction adds an unnecessary level of complexity.” At that rate, stations could see price drops of close to $45 million in a single round, and all prices “will fall by more than 30 percent in just the first eight rounds of bidding,” EOBC said. “This rapid decline will not provide any opportunity for broadcasters to make critical decisions about how to participate in the auction.” A fixed decrement would allow broadcasters to “easily determine the exact dollar amount by which their bids will fall each round,” coalition Executive Director Preston Padden said.

A variable band plan is “poor long-term spectrum policy,” said NAB at a June 22 meeting with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and commission staff, according to an ex parte filing. “The negative effects of variability will not be felt in the near term, but only down the line when a future Commission is required to manage the challenges posed by broadcasters and wireless operators attempting to serve consumers on the same frequencies in the 600 MHz band.” The interference challenges are similar to the problems with the 700 MHz A block due to its proximity to TV Channel 51, NAB said. Relocating TV stations in the duplex gap in certain markets “will wipe out licensed wireless microphone use for breaking news purposes in those areas,” NAB said. The proposal is “the result of a singular focus on auction design and not on the resulting landscape after the auction,” NAB said in the filing posted Thursday to docket 14-252. “Broadcasters that were already struggling to figure out how to cover breaking news and emergencies on just 4 MHz of spectrum will be further hampered.”

FCC incentive auction policies could lead to “a number of communities across America” losing public TV service after the auction, said the Association of Public Television Stations (APTS), the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS in a statement released Monday reacting to the commission’s rejection of their petition for reconsideration of the auction order. The public TV groups had asked the FCC to reserve a channel for noncommercial educational station use in markets where all the operating NCEs entered the auction. The decision to not do so reverses a 60-year-old policy of preserving “the invaluable services provided by local public television stations,” the groups said. “The Commission has decided for the first time ever to make the continued existence of noncommercial educational reserved spectrum subject entirely to market forces,” the statement said. “The Commission has disregarded the needs of the millions of Americans who rely on public television for essential services in education, public safety and civic leadership.” The FCC "recognizes the important public service role that public broadcasting plays," an FCC spokesman said via email. "All eligible stations have the option to take part in the incentive auction, but aren't required to do so," he said. The incentive auction includes a range of participation options such as channel sharing or moving to the VHF band, the spokesman said. Those options "would permit stations to benefit financially from the auction, while at the same time continuing to provide their valuable content to viewers," he said.

The FCC mailed out its second round of equal employment opportunity (EEO) audit letters to randomly selected radio stations June 12, the Media Bureau said in a public notice in Friday's Daily Digest. “Each year, approximately five percent of all radio and television stations are selected for EEO audits,” the PN said. Responses are due July 27.

It's “unlikely” that any industry affected by the FCC vacant channel NPRM proposals (see 1506160043) “will be happy with them,” said Fletcher Heald broadcast attorney Peter Tannenwald in a blog post Tuesday. Low-power TV “stations are already discontent[ed] with the prospect of being squeezed out of business (as [Commissioner Ajit] Pai suggests is almost certain to happen); they are likely to object,” he said. Wireless mic users and others have also said sharing spectrum with other uses will impair their devices, Tannenwald said. “In other words, get ready for yet another incentive auction/repack-spawned struggle.”

The FCC Wireless and Media bureaus received 87 complete short-form applications for a July 23 auction of 131 FM construction permits. The bureaus also received 24 incomplete applications and one application that has been rejected, they said in a public notice Wednesday. Applicants with complete applications will become qualified bidders in Auction 98 if the FCC receives their upfront payment by June 29. Applicants with incomplete applications will receive letters about the errors therein and will have until June 29 to submit corrected applications and their upfront fees, the PN said. One Ministries Inc. was rejected for a permit for a noncommercial educational station that is mutually exclusive with an application for a commercial broadcast station, the PN said. That means One Ministries can't participate in Auction 98, the PN said.

FCBA officials have been told the FCC is preparing a response to the bar association's letter on the commission's incentive auction anti-collusion rules, Wiley Rein broadcast attorney Kathleen Kirby said Tuesday at an FCBA lunch. The response is being prepared by the Office of General Counsel, she said. In the FCBA letter on the rules (see 1505180056), the association said the rules let broadcast attorneys represent multiple licensees in the auction. If attorneys can't represent multiple licensees, there likely are not enough attorneys to go around, FCBA said. Broadcast attorneys have told us a response to the FCBA letter wasn't expected unless the commission disagreed with the association's stance. The OGC didn't comment.

SoundHound and Westwood One created a mobile ad platform for radio stations, they said in a news release Monday. SoundHound for Radio lets radio stations “interact with listeners, brands, and advertisers” and became available Monday, the companies said. The platform enables broadcasts to work with the SoundHound app “in a new way that gives not only the song information, but also attribution,” they said. When listeners use the SoundHound music recognition app on a station that has implemented SoundHound for Radio, “the results resolve to a branded station page including content, a contest, or coupon engagement opportunities,” the companies said. Local stations will control the ad information displayed, and the platform includes real-time analytics, said SoundHound and Westwood One.