Monty Tayloe

COVID-19 is affecting local small business advertising and sports revenue, but won’t hurt political ads, said Fox, Nexstar and Sinclair on Q1 calls. All predicted big drops for the next quarter, saying their companies have the scale to weather recession. “We’ve seen a surge of viewership in local news and across our sites,” said Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley. Also Wednesday, The FCC announced Sinclair agreed to a $48 million penalty to resolve investigations related to its failed purchase of Tribune, sponsorship identification violations, and good faith negotiation violations (see 2005060063).

The new FCC seal was inspired by both the original seal and those of other federal agencies, said FCC IT Project manager Umasankar Arumugam, the new seal’s designer (see 2004300060). Arumugam works for NCI Information Systems, a contractor for the agency. “I wanted to represent all of the current communication technologies in the seal and make the design a little more contemporary, while still borrowing elements from the legacy seal, such as the sky and land concepts represented by satellite and towers,” he emailed: The typography's serif font “is both formal and can evoke a sense of trust, making it ideal for an authoritative seal.” Arumugam worked on the seal during his free time, has designed user experiences for several FCC systems, and worked on Broadband.gov and the FCC Accessibility Clearinghouse, an FCC spokesperson told us.

The FCC’s planned move to new headquarters at Sentinel Square III near Union Station in Washington has been delayed for an unknown period by COVID-19, and employees said in interviews they're more concerned about when and how they will be required to return to work than what building they will be doing it in. “Employees want to make sure that if and when they are called upon to return to the existing office either to resume duties on site or to pack up their workspaces, that health and safety precautions are taken,” said National Treasury Employees Union President Tony Reardon in a statement to us.

The FCC adopted a new seal, before its planned move to new headquarters near Union Station in Washington said a public notice Thursday. The seal, depicting an eagle positioned behind a shield decorated with a satellite, microwave and broadcast dishes and a cellular tower facing strung communications wires, was chosen through an agencywide contest that began in November. The winning design, by Umasankar Arumugam, was voted on in December and announced internally in January, an agency spokesperson told us. Arumugam’s LinkedIn profile lists him as a director for IT company NCI Information Systems, which mentions analytic work for the FCC on its website. Arumugam didn’t comment. The seal has four stars as a call-back to FCC predecessor the Federal Radio Commission and 18 stars representing the agency's bureaus and offices, the PN said. Because of the move and need to create new seals for the new building regardless, the overall cost “was minimized as much as can be,” a spokesperson said. The FCC said it will begin officially using the new seal after the move, which is delayed by COVID-19 concerns (see 2004130057). The U.S. Institute of Heraldry, which provides heraldic services to federal agencies and the military, didn’t comment. American College of Heraldry Executive Director David Wooten said the seal leans “toward the logo end of the spectrum.” The "logic behind the FCC’s new seal is certainly clear, though it would not necessarily qualify as heraldry,” Wooten said.

The FCC approved a reorganization of the Media Bureau, combining the Engineering Division with the Industry Analysis Division, as expected (see 2004010038). The order was approved with Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel concurring. No statement was provided explaining her issues with the order. A Rosenworcel aide told us the commissioner didn't think now was a good time to be disbanding the Engineering Division. The reorganization resulted from the creation of the Office of Economics and Analytics, which moved staff from IAD to that new division, the order said. “The key objectives of this organizational change are to more efficiently deploy Commission resources, enhance the Bureau’s understanding and analysis of the media industry, and rationalize and modernize our organizational structure.”

More radio broadcasters supported (see 2004220039) a petition asking the FCC to authorize radio stations to use zoned broadcast technology analogous to TV single frequency networks, commenting this week in RM-11854. Many were from smaller radio broadcasters and nearly identical. Zoned broadcast coverage would allow radio stations to offer “targeted emergency alerts, local news and public interest programming, live local events of great interest to small portions of the station service area,” and “geo-targeted weather information,” said Philips Broadcasting, Pikes Peak Community College, Lake Broadcasting, Peak Radio and many others. BIA Advisory Services studies show geotargeted underwriting increases station revenue, said Way-FM Media Group: The small change needed to rules for boosters “is modest and undoubtedly worthy of active consideration.”

With COVID-19 disproportionately affecting minority and disadvantaged communities, the FCC Advisory Committee on Diversity and Digital Empowerment's working groups adjusted their focus to grapple with the pandemic, according to work plans presented Tuesday at the group’s teleconferenced first meeting under its new charter. Along with reacting to the virus, the committee’s working groups laid out plans for workshops and events aimed at increasing diversity among communications companies. “When the country catches a cold, the most vulnerable catch the flu,” said Brookings Institution Fellow Nicol Turner-Lee and Diversity in Tech WG chair.

The FCC has made progress addressing security vulnerabilities in the electronic comment filing system related to the disruptions during the 2017 net neutrality comment period (see 1812030034) but needs to do more, GAO reported Friday in the publicly available version of a report released for official use in September. GAO offered 136 recommendations the FCC could implement to improve ECFS security, and by November, the agency had “fully implemented” 85. The auditor said the commission has a plan to tackle all the recommendations by April 2021. “We have been working diligently to address the recommendations in the report and have addressed 94 to date and plan to implement the remaining recommendations on a rolling basis over the next year," emailed an FCC spokesperson Friday. Deficiencies found by GAO involved “identifying risk, protecting systems from threats and vulnerabilities, detecting and responding to cyber security events, and recovering system operations,” the report said. "The FCC is committed to protecting the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of our information systems,” the spokesperson said. “Until the FCC implements all of the remaining recommendations, its systems will remain vulnerable to failure and misuse,” said House Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, D-N.J. He said Chairman Ajit Pai "must act swiftly to fix these vulnerabilities and restore trust back into the ECFS and the FCC’s cybersecurity practices overall.”

The FCC should let radio stations deploy FM booster technology analogous to TV single frequency networks that would allow for more targeted broadcasts, said a host of radio stations in comments posted in RM-11854 through Wednesday. Called zoned broadcast coverage, the technology would allow “hyper-localized content” such as geotargeted weather reports and emergency messaging, said GeoBroadcast's March petition for rulemaking. Emmis Communications and smaller broadcasters support the FCC's kicking off a rulemaking on the technology. “The proposal would bring numerous benefits to consumers, local communities and radio broadcasters,” said Ashley Communications, Hubcast, Southwest Media and others in nearly identical comments. The agency would need to make “a small change” in the rules around signal boosters to enable the technology, Emmis said. Rec Networks is supportive but concerned it could cause a “booster boom.”

Commissioners are expected to unanimously approve before Thursday’s meeting an order relaxing low-power FM technical restrictions and an NPRM on expanding video descriptions, FCC officials told us. The video description draft isn’t expected to undergo much change. The LPFM order's final version is expected to include changes to the section on waivers for channel 6 interference and possible changes on directional antennas.