Monty Tayloe

The FCC should streamline the process for deploying broadband infrastructure on federal land, FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai said during a “Fireside Chat” at the Montana High Tech Jobs Summit Monday with Commissioner Mike O’Rielly and Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont. Streamlining deployment approval on federal lands could speed up the process of spreading broadband throughout the country’s rural areas, Pai said. “Ubiquitous broadband” is a key to helping rural areas compete in the global economy, Pai said. The commissioners also discussed disruptive innovation, net neutrality and the TV incentive auction. The event also featured a panel on spectrum and the wireless economy that included policy officials from Charter Communications and NAB.

NAB petitioned the FCC to reconsider its incentive auction procedures public notice on the issues of market variability, repacking broadcasters in the duplex gap, and reserving space for wireless mics. The challenges, posted Friday in docket 12-268, won't “require the FCC to delay the auction or upend fundamental aspects of its auction design,” the association said in a news release. “Both issues can be addressed through software settings and do not require reevaluation of the Commission’s auction design.” Speaking on an episode of C-Span's The Communicators filmed before NAB's petition was posted online, Incentive Auction Task Force Chairman Gary Epstein said the auction is on track to start March 29 as planned.

A CTIA proposal to change the conditions under which broadcasters must vacate their sold 600 MHz spectrum after the incentive auction to make way for the new wireless owners (see 1509100072) isn't as limited as the wireless organization is making it out to be, said an NAB spokesman. The FCC proposal is to require low-power TV stations to leave their former spectrum once the wireless licensee “commences operations” -- setting up permanent facilities and antennas. That plan won't allow for market testing that is “integral to the deployment of broadband,” said CTIA Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Scott Bergmann in an interview. Instead, CTIA wants the commission to define the commencement of operations as beginning when wireless carriers begin doing limited market tests in “certain select markets.”

The outage of many of the FCC’s most used online systems (see 1508200049) has inconvenienced the attorneys and licensees who use them but hasn’t created any serious problems, industry attorneys told us Wednesday. The additional two days of the outage (see 1509080051) added to the inconvenience. Lawyers said they weren’t surprised the IT upgrades hadn't quite proceeded as planned. “It’s like that with any IT thing, not just at the FCC," said Fletcher Heald broadcast attorney Dan Kirkpatrick.

Media General's proposed $2.4 billion deal to buy Meredith and form a new company called Meredith Media General is likely to get FCC OK, industry lawyers said in interviews Tuesday. Earlier that day, the companies said in a news release and investor call that the new company would be the No. 3 big-four network affiliate owner and reach 30 percent of U.S households. Meredith CEO Steve Lacy, who would be the new company’s CEO, said it would own 88 stations, assuming it divests one station each in the six markets where Meredith and Media General overlap. With the divestitures, the deal isn't seen as likely to run into trouble at the FCC, attorneys told us. The sale is expected to be completed by June 30, Lacy said.

A draft order that would allow broadcasters to communicate contest rule information online rather than over the air doesn't face any opposition on the eighth floor and addresses many concerns raised by broadcasters earlier in the proceeding, FCC officials and industry attorneys told us. The current rule for such contests causes radio stations to broadcast the legal language governing their contests in a difficult-to-follow stream of words usually read by a speed talker, attorneys said. The draft order would allow broadcasters to refer listeners to a simple website address where that legal language is listed, and the draft order leaves the decision of how often to mention the site up to broadcasters, said agency officials. The draft order is on the tentative agenda for the FCC Sept. 17 commissioner meeting.

The Media Bureau sought comment on proposals in the Downloadable Security Technological Advisory Committee final report (see 1508280035) even as stakeholders continued debating the merits of FCC action on what DSTAC proposed. The bureau, in a public notice Tuesday, asked “how it should inform the Commission’s obligations” to promote competitive availability for navigation devices. The Public Knowledge and TiVo-backed Consumer Video Choice Coalition (CVC) and DSTAC member Hauppauge released statements Tuesday asking the FCC to implement recommendations from the report.

Broadcasters ratcheted up a push for an FCC FM translator window for AM stations, as expected (see 1508270029), with lobbying visits and a letter to Chairman Tom Wheeler. Any approach to AM revitalization that doesn’t include an AM-only window for FM translator applications will make it “extremely difficult” for AM stations to remain competitive, 50 CEOs of minority-owned AM licensees said in a letter to Wheeler Monday. “AM radio has been the technological gateway for entrepreneurs of color in broadcasting,” said the letter, which listed officials from the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council (MMTC) and National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters as contact points. “Two-thirds of minority-owned broadcast stations are AM radio stations,” the letter said. The draft AM revitalization order doesn't include a translator window.

Broadcasters and NCTA disagree whether allowing TV stations engaged in second-generation channel sharing to keep their must-carry rights is a bigger burden for cable carriers. Their opinions came in replies posted Friday and Monday in FCC docket 15-137. Second-generation channel sharing is channel sharing after the incentive auction is over and is unrelated to converting broadcast spectrum to wireless use, and NCTA doesn’t think the agency should allow licensees that give up their spectrum to retain their must carry-rights. “Allowing post-auction channel sharing would likely multiply carriage disruptions and distortions -- while failing to serve any legitimate governmental interest,” NCTA said. “If two stations have carriage rights before they enter into a channel sharing agreement, and they preserve carriage rights after entering the agreement -- how has the burden on the MVPD [multichannel video programming distributor] increased at all?” countered NAB.

Just a half-hour after the FCC's Downloadable Security Technical Advisory Committee formally completed its work and submitted its final report, 30 companies -- many of them DSTAC member pay-TV companies -- released a statement asking the FCC to not take any action based on the document. “There is no need for FCC technology mandates in a marketplace where consumers can access MVPD [multichannel video programming distributor] and OVD [online video distributor] content on a wide and growing array of retail devices,” said the statement, signed by the American Cable Association; DSTAC members Arris, Comcast and Dish Network; NCTA; Verizon; and many others in the pay-TV industry. The Free State Foundation and NCTA also separately urged the FCC not to interfere with the marketplace through regulations on downloadable security. “The report reflects substantial opposition to the idea of a new, government-imposed technology mandate,” NCTA said. Several MVPD industry officials had told us they wanted the FCC to take no action (see 1508260034).