The Sports Fans Coalition again urged the FCC to dump the sports blackout rule. Fans around the country are waiting for the FCC “to finally put an end to this archaic and anti-fan practice,” the coalition said Monday in a news release. The FCC is expected to unanimously vote Tuesday for eliminating the rule (CD Sept 11 p2). The vote will send a message to the NFL and other sports leagues “that the free ride they've been given by the government is over,” said the coalition, started, in part, by a former Dish Network executive.

The Minority Media and Telecommunications Council asked the FCC to reverse the denial of an AM station’s request to move its transmitter site. MMTC had criticized the Media Bureau for its decision, after dissent on the decision from Commissioner Ajit Pai (CD Sept 26 p6). The request “was an elevation of dated FCC procedures over the public interest,” MMTC said in a letter to the commissioners Monday. If it’s inappropriate for the bureau’s Audio Division to take the immediate action requested in the Tell City waiver application, then it’s entirely appropriate for the full commission to speak on this important policy matter for AM broadcasters, it said. The FCC can do so by immediately reversing the decision on its own motion and granting the waiver, it said.

CEA asked to intervene in support of the FCC in Sinclair’s court challenge of the commission’s incentive auction order, in a motion filed by CEA in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Monday. Sinclair’s challenge threatens to “derail” or “delay” the incentive auction, which would harm CEA’s members, that association said. Though NAB’s challenge to the auction order was filed last month and has now been consolidated with Sinclair’s, CEA named only Sinclair as the motivation behind the motion to intervene. “Challenges to the Incentive Auction Order by broadcasters who have eight year broadcast licenses harm the FCC’s ability to ensure our wireless networks and innovations are keeping pace with our growing innovation environment,” CEA President Gary Shapiro said in a statement Monday. CEA hopes to help “inform the record” in support of the auction, Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Julie Kearney told us.

The FCC Media Bureau denied a petition for reconsideration from Kingdom of God to reinstate the license of its Class A WKGK Kokomo, Indiana. It’s clear that the station’s numerous periods of extended silence, including the most recent one that resulted in expiration of its license, “are a direct result of KOG’s own business decisions and reinstatement is not warranted,” the bureau said in a letter to Kingdom of God released Monday (http://bit.ly/1CBj1v8). The removal of the station’s tower and antenna are not persuasive arguments in support of reinstatement, it said.

The FCC should stay out of the debate on whether the Washington Redskins team name should be deemed a broadcast license-ending infraction, a broadcast attorney said. No current laws or FCC regulations or policies “prohibit broadcast of the word ‘Redskins,’ or any other racial epithet for that matter,” said Fletcher Heald attorney Steve Lovelady Monday in a blog post (http://bit.ly/1vrBRkT). Lovelady referred to a petition from John Banzhaf, a George Washington University professor who challenged the license of WWXX-FM Washington. The petition relies on a statute that makes it a criminal offense to broadcast obscene, indecent or profane language on radio or TV, Lovelady said. As inconsistent as the FCC’s enforcement of that provision has been, the provision “has never been held to proscribe racial or ethnic epithets,” he said. Since the term “Redskins” doesn’t have any per se sexual or excretory connotations at all, “much less any offensive ones, it would be impossible to stretch the terms ‘obscene’ or ‘indecent’ to include ‘Redskins,'” he said.

The FCC Media Bureau seeks comment on a draft form to be used by broadcasters and multichannel video programming distributors to apply for reimbursement for expenses caused by relocation after the incentive auction, said a public notice released Thursday (http://bit.ly/1pwKpRS). The form (http://bit.ly/1xq0EsO) contains blanks for those affected by relocation to estimate eligible expenses incurred documenting actual costs, and the information needed to set up a Department of Treasury account to receive payment. The form is intended to be submitted electronically and will include a final version of the catalog of eligible expenses that was previously released for comment by the bureau, the PN said. “The comments we receive will assist us in designing a form that facilitates the reimbursement process for all parties, while also ensuring that we are efficient stewards of limited reimbursement funds, and guarding against waste, fraud, and abuse.” The bureau seeks comment on what data on the form should be considered confidential. The amounts distributed from the fund to each broadcaster and MVPD will be public, but other data could be treated as confidential, the PN said. Eligible entities will file the form within three months after the FCC releases a PN announcing channel reassignments, and that’s when estimates will be submitted along with plans to buy new equipment or modify existing equipment, the PN said. Reimbursement funds will be initially allocated based on cost estimates, though applicants will need to set up Treasury accounts before the three-month deadline to receive them, the PN said. Broadcasters and MVPDs will submit updated reimbursement forms with cost documentation “each time they seek reimbursement for an expense against their allocation,” the PN said. “This process will allow entities to use federal funds to pay their expenses as they are incurred.” A final form is submitted “upon completing construction or by a specific deadline prior to the end of the three-year reimbursement period to be announced by the Media Bureau, whichever is earlier.” Stations with outstanding expenses by that deadline will provide a final accounting of expenses “upon completing the transition, even if this occurs after the end of the reimbursement period,” the PN said. The FCC is seeking comment prior to submitting the form to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), after which there will be another opportunity for public comment, the PN said. Comments on the form are due Oct. 27.

The FCC Media Bureau allotted Channel 280A at McCall, Idaho. A staff engineering analysis confirms the channel can be allotted there consistent with the minimum distance separation requirements of the rules with a site restriction 0.2 miles southwest of the community, the bureau said in an order released Friday (http://bit.ly/1uMTbzf). The bureau terminated the proceeding. The amendment to the FM table of allotments will be effective Nov. 10, it said.

Disney re-launched its Watch ABC services with enhanced social sharing features for a more personalized experience. The new features include “FastShare,” “Social Lens” and “Multi-Cam,” Disney said Thursday in a news release. FastShare allows viewers to access and share clips of “in-show moments, all while staying within the viewing experience in the app,” it said. Social Lens integrates users’ Facebook and Twitter profiles in the Watch ABC app, and Multi-Cam offers exclusive access to backstage cameras during live events, Disney said.

The Association of Public Television Stations urged the FCC to resolve issues of reallocating broadcast spectrum before it deals with a rulemaking request from NPR to end TV Channel 6 protections. Consideration of withdrawing protections for broadcasters on Channel 6 would be “premature, particularly in light of the commission’s contemplation of potential plans for spectrum reallocation ... to support wireless broadband services,” said an APTS opposition in RM-11579 posted Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1sqesCr). Three full-power public TV stations are on Channel 6, as are “dozens of translators licensed or utilized by public television stations,” it said. NPR petitioned the FCC for a rulemaking in 2009.

With pay-TV subscribers who pay retransmission consent fees in slow decline, broadcast network owners are forced to become far more aggressive financially, a BTIG Research analyst said. Some networks are taking over their affiliates in NFL cities, analyst Richard Greenfield said Tuesday in a blog post (http://bit.ly/1pbHL4S). Fox now captures 100 percent of retrans dollars and “can use its owned and operated heft and power in National Football Conference markets to drive retrans to new highs” as it negotiates with multichannel video programming distributors, he said. Fox bought CW and MyNetworkTV stations in Charlotte and didn’t renew its affiliation agreement with WCCB Charlotte, owned by Bahakel (CD April 19/13 p21). Bahakel was left to take the CW affiliation in Charlotte, Greenfield said. Bahakel has to squeeze whatever little retrans it can out of an affiliation “that comes with no major sports rights or meaningful programming leverage,” he said. Fox reportedly is looking to transform the Tribune-affiliated Seattle station into a Fox-owned and operated station, he said. Like Charlotte, Seattle is an NFC market, he said. It’s a reminder that all the power in broadcast TV resides with the network, and that “networks are increasingly taking the economics of broadcast TV back from the affiliates,” Greenfield said. “The affiliates are helpless, left to settle for whatever economics their broadcast parents are willing to allow them to have (for now).” Fox had no comment.