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.

Many cities with large populations of Latino, Korean, Chinese and Vietnamese speakers have few broadcasters transmitting in those languages, said Asian Americans Advancing Justice, the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council, NAACP and 23 other groups in a letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler posted Thursday in docket 06-119. Saturday marks the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which took New Orleans’ only Spanish-language station off air for eight days, the groups said. “During those eight days, over 100,000 Latinos had no landline service, no cellular telephony, no television, no radio, and no print media in their language,” the groups said. Civil rights organizations in 2005 proposed the “Katrina Petition,” under which stations in localities would be designated to broadcast emergency alert system (EAS) warnings in multiple languages, but the FCC hasn’t acted on it, the groups said. The FCC should require stations to certify they will help other stations transmit life-saving information in emergencies as a condition of license renewal, they said. “Stations that declare that they ‘will not transmit, or even help other stations transmit, life-saving information in an emergency’ should have their fitness to hold an FCC license formally reviewed,” the letter said. “State EAS plans can easily be amended to incorporate reasonable methods of ensuring that lifesaving information finds its way to the public in an emergency.”

NAB, the Radio Television Digital News Association, Society of Professional Journalists and other groups, plus legislators and regulators, expressed sadness Wednesday (see here, here and here) over the on-air shooting of two employees of TV station WDBJ Roanoke, Virginia. FCC Commissioners Mike O’Rielly, Ajit Pai and Jessica Rosenworcel also expressed sorrow over the event via Twitter.

The LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition will support the vacant channel order if the FCC prioritizes low-power TV stations owned by government entities over unlicensed users, Coalition Director Mike Gravino told Incentive Auction Task Force, Media Bureau and Office of Engineering Technology staff in a meeting last week, according to an ex parte filing posted Wednesday in docket 12-268. Since the FCC hasn’t studied the issue of displaced civic LPTV stations, it doesn’t have a basis for using its discretionary authority, Gravino said.

The FCC Media Bureau released an agenda for its Sept. 9 workshop on using Form 323 data covering commercial broadcast ownership, in a public notice Wednesday. Since the event has certain technical requirements, attendees are encouraged to preregister for the event and download necessary data before the workshop. Due to an IT upgrade (see 1508200049), FCC computer systems will be unavailable for six days, starting Sept. 2, the PN said. “Workshop attendees are encouraged to preregister and download the required materials by 5:00 PM on Wednesday, September 2.”

Class A TV stations must terminate analog transmissions by Sept. 1, the FCC Media Bureau said in a reminder public notice Tuesday. The deadline stems from the FCC low-power TV DTV order, the PN said. “Class A television stations may no longer operate any facility in analog mode associated with their Class A license after 11:59 pm, local time, on September 1, 2015.” Class A stations that haven’t completed constructing digital facilities must go silent while they do so, it said. Class A's silent for more than 30 days must request permission from the FCC, and stations silent for 12 consecutive months risk losing their authorization, it said. Stations that require additional time can submit a request for tolling, it said, and stations that haven’t completed the transition are obligated to notify their viewers on-air “of their forthcoming digital transition.”