Doug Halonen

A coalition of top public broadcast organizations formally withdrew a recommendation that the Federal Communications Commission ease equal employment opportunity requirements for public stations. America’s Public Television Stations, National Public Radio, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Public Broadcasting Service recommended the review in a joint response to the commission’s request for comments on its agenda to modernize media regulations. After supporters of the EEO rules objected last week, the organizations formally withdrew it.

Even if the Federal Communications Commission relaxes its ownership rules, Sinclair and other broadcasters would still be blocked from owning two network affiliates in many cases by Justice Department antitrust regulators who have a cap of their own. It limits a broadcaster to controlling no more than 40% of the market's broadcast TV revenue. So, Sinclair is waging a campaign to increase that percentage by changing the way regulators define the local market.

The emergence of Jeffrey A. Eisenach, a long-time Washington telecommunications policy insider and economist who favors free markets, as head of President-elect Donald Trump’s Federal Communications Commission transition team — and as a leading candidate for the agency’s chairmanship — has raised broadcast industry hopes that the agency will shift onto a more deregulatory course.

Eisenach, 58, is well known in communications policy circles. He has served as a consultant to the National Association of Broadcasters and the Walt Disney Co., writing detailed economic reports supporting their positions on the incentive auction, retransmission consent and ownership deregulation. Eisenach has also been called in by NCTA–The Internet & Television Association on telephone issues, said Brian Dietz, an NCTA spokesman. “Over the past several years, NCTA occasionally engaged Jeffrey Eisenach’s firm for economic studies on different policy issues. He has deep experience on technology policy and competition issues and we’ve always welcomed his thoughts and analysis.” NAB President Gordon Smith calls him a "smart choice" for the Trump transition.

The Rainbow PUSH Coalition has asked the Federal Communications Commission to review its July decision approving Sinclair Broadcast Group's $985 million purchase of eight ABC affiliates in seven markets from Allbritton Communications.

Rainbow PUSH said the FCC’s Media Bureau erred in rejecting a coalition request that an FCC hearing be held to look into allegations that Sinclair’s use of sidecar companies flouted FCC station ownership limits.

At the same time the Federal Communications Commission axes its syndicated exclusivity and network non-duplication rules, it also should bar broadcasters from inking other kinds of contracts that could prevent cable operators from importing distant-market signals, say Cablevision Systems and Charter Communications in a joint filing at the FCC.

In addition, the two cable operators want the FCC to require broadcasters to offer “reasonable ” and “nondiscriminatory” retransmission consent rates to pay TV operators, “not tied to carriage of any other programming service or other non-cash compensation,” according to their June 26 FCC filing.

“These steps, which fall squarely within the commission’s authority, would reintroduce some equality of bargaining that has long been absent and avoid much of the consumer harm currently caused by retransmission-consent negotiations,” the cable operators added.

The Federal Communications Commission has released key technical data that the agency used to predict that TV stations may face little new interference after they are repacked into new channel assignments in the wake of the agency’s incentive auction in 2015.

The FCC has said that agency repacking simulations had shown that only about 1% of stations are expected to receive more than 1 percent additional interference, with none receiving more than 2%, after TV stations are repacked into new channel assignments after the incentive auctions.

The National Association of Broadcasters asked that the FCC release the 100 repacking scenarios that the FCC had based its findings on, hoping to test the agency’s results. Said NAB EVP Rick Kaplan, in response to the FCC’s data dump: “We are thankful the FCC responded positively to our request. This information should prove to be very useful and will allow NAB and others assist the FCC in the very complex repacking process.”

The Federal Communications Commission has hired an investment banking firm to help develop educational material to use to persuade broadcasters to participate in the agency’s incentive auction in 2015, clearing the way for the agency to beef up its station outreach efforts later this summer, according to an agency official.

The banking firm tapped, according to the FCC official, is New York-based Greenhill & Co. Greenhill’s key assignment will be to put together a “book” that explains why participating in the auction might be in a broadcaster’s interest, the FCC official says.

The book will be a “central part” of the outreach, which will have both “one-to-one and one-to-many” components, the official adds.

The FCC decided to seek outside help for the outreach because the financial analysis that broadcasters will need to use to decide whether to cash out of the TV business during the auction is complicated, the official says. “There’s a lot of money involved,” the FCC official adds. “We are hopeful broadcasters are taking a closer look at the opportunities.”

The National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters has asked the Federal Communications Commission to approve joint sales agreement waivers that would clear the way for Nexstar Broadcasting Group’s $58.5 million proposed sale of three Fox affiliates to minority-owned Marshall Broadcasting Group.

But in its June 18 filing at the FCC, NABOB also said the agency should require Nexstar and the newly formed MBG to answer additional questions about their proposed deal. Also, according to the filing, NABOB wants the FCC to subject approval of the deal to annual reporting requirements.

Among the additional questions that NABOB wants answered are whether the parties have a plan in place for the brokered stations to develop their own sales forces during the terms of the JSAs, and how payments to the brokering stations will affect the brokered stations.

The Federal Communications Commission has all but slammed the door on a broadcast industry proposal that could have made it easier for TV station groups to introduce a new advanced television standard in the US, broadcast industry sources said.

Under the proposal, originally pitched at the FCC by Sinclair Broadcast Group, TV station groups that agreed to forego federal reimbursement for any stations forced to move to new channels during the agency’s incentive auction repacking process would have received a waiver allowing them to use the existing spectrum for all their stations’ channels for traditional broadcast and other new services.

Some broadcasters, led by Sinclair, want to be able to use at least part of their existing spectrum capacity to introduce an advanced TV standard that would make it easier for them to broadcast a variety of services to consumer mobile devices. But in the fine print of the 484-page text of the incentive auction rules the agency released June 2, the FCC rejected the request for a blanket waiver that would have applied to all of a group broadcaster’s stations.

The new Federal Communications Commission rule barring Top 4 TV stations from negotiating retransmission consent deals together in the same market will go into effect June 18 -- the same day petitions seeking agency reconsideration of the new ban are now due.

In addition, legal challenges to the new bar on joint retransmission negotiations will be due in federal appeals court by July 18, they added.

The clock on the legal filing deadlines was set into motion by the official publication of the FCC’s March 31 order in the Federal Register. The Federal Register, according to the agency’s website, is planning to publish the official order on the FCC’s March 31 crackdown on joint sales agreements, setting off another set of legal filing deadlines.