A waiver granted to Fox Television Stations to let it to own WWOR-TV Secaucus, New Jersey, and The New York Post is "unprecedented relief" because it allows Fox to extend the duration of the waiver so long as it requests a new waiver after the FCC acts on its 2014 quadrennial review, said the Rainbow PUSH Coalition and United Church of Christ in an ex parte filing posted in docket 07-260 Tuesday. Since FCC proposals for the quadrennial review don't include allowing common ownership of two TV stations and a daily newspaper, "it is a near certainty that Fox will have to request a new waiver, thereby effectively extending Fox’s conditional waiver beyond the end of the 2014 Quadrennial Review," the groups said. The FCC should "hold the Media Bureau accountable" and promote greater transparency for waivers of rules, the filing said. To do so, the bureau could release a list of all outstanding ownership waivers online, and put out public notices when licensees seek new waivers or extensions, the groups said. "Enacting these suggestions would reinforce the Commission’s current efforts in tightening compliance with the ownership rules."

Dec. 13 may be a hard deadline for Commercial Advertising Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act compliance for full-power stations that received waivers for the original compliance date of Dec. 13, 2012, said a blog post on the Fletcher Heald website by broadcast attorney Dan Kirkpatrick. Two one-year waivers were “expressly provided for by Congress in the CALM Act,” but no more than that, Kirkpatrick said. Though the FCC has the ability to issue a waiver for any of its rules, stations that aren’t yet in compliance with the CALM Act shouldn’t count on a further extension of the deadline, he wrote. When the commission updated the algorithms the CALM Act uses to calculate loudness earlier this year (see 1406050067), it emphasized stations with existing financial hardship waivers for the CALM Act will have to comply “when their financial hardship waivers expire,” Kirkpatrick said. If the FCC considers further waiver requests, it may use the stiffer standards it used in 2012 for waiver requests from companies that didn’t qualify as small businesses, Kirkpatrick said.

A Media Bureau order on WPXA-TV Rome, Georgia, moving down the dial to Channel 31 (see 1410310063) from 51 took effect Monday, said an FCC notice in that day's Federal Register. Ion Media, the station's licensee, will file a construction permit application for Channel 31 as part of the channel substitution, said the notice. It said the move will let the station "serve all viewers currently receiving digital service while eliminating any potential interference with wireless operations in the Lower 700 MHZ A Block located adjacent to channel 51 in Rome."

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s characterization of a draft NPRM to extend multichannel video programming distributor privileges to over-the-top providers as taking away barriers that hindered innovators such as Aereo doesn’t show respect for the law, said NAB Executive Vice President-Strategic Planning Rick Kaplan Monday in a blog post. “Aereo was innovative only in its creative attempt to skirt the copyright laws,” said Kaplan. “Shouldn’t it matter to the FCC, at a bare minimum, whether content is distributed legally or illegally?” Kaplan also took issue with Wheeler's pinning Aereo’ s court defeat on broadcasters and outdated FCC rules. The barrier to Aereo’s success was the Copyright Act, Kaplan said. “Even if the Chairman could unilaterally change the FCC’s ‘old rules’ today, Aereo’s business model would still violate the law,” Kaplan said. Though NAB supports the FCC’s examination of including OTT services under the MVPD definition, “tough questions loom” about the rule change, Kaplan said. Those include “how to handle a deluge of new potential MVPDs, how to avoid further homogenizing news, weather, sports and entertainment, and how to prevent stifling new business models outside of the MVPD context,” said Kaplan. Representatives in Wheeler's office didn't comment.

FCC plans for a 2014 quadrennial review of media ownership don't include a crackdown on shared service agreements, said Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker in an email to investors. At a Wells Fargo-sponsored conference in New York Thursday, Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake told attendees that the commission is looking to gather information on SSAs rather than tighten rules, Ryvicker wrote. “The FCC understands that shared services arrangements are a benign and sometimes necessary method to improve efficiencies and cut costs (often times the only means of survival for a struggling broadcaster), and for the most part, do not pose a regulatory issue,” Ryvicker said. Though the commission may find aspects of some agreements “problematic,” the FCC “simply wants to be informed,” she said. The proposed new rules for SSAs would require registration, but not a form of approval, Ryvicker said.

The FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau granted a temporary extension from closed captioning requirements for the program Outdoorsmen Adventures. Outdoorsmen Productions has demonstrated that its compliance with the FCC’s closed captioning requirements “would be economically burdensome,” the bureau said in an order Thursday. The exemption is effective until Nov. 13, 2016, the bureau said.

The FCC should retain or tighten media ownership rules as a “race neutral” way of creating opportunity for new entrants, said the National Hispanic Media Coalition in a Wednesday meeting with Media Bureau staff, said an NHMC ex parte filing posted in docket 14-50 Friday. “The Prometheus line of cases out of the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals prevents the Commission from relaxing any rules without first analyzing the impact that such relaxation would have on ownership rates by women and people of color.” Since radio contributes to viewpoint diversity, cross-ownership rules involving it should not be relaxed, said NHMC. The FCC should begin collecting and analyzing data about broadcast ownership by minorities and women, said the group. That should include an examination of the data collected through Form 323 submissions, a resumption of collection of Form 395 equal employment opportunity data and a public release of that information, said NHMC.

The channel change of WPXS Mount Vernon, Illinois, down the TV dial from 21 to 11 is effective Dec. 15, said an FCC notice in Thursday's Federal Register. It said the move "will further the Commission’s goal of clearing UHF spectrum for new uses and allow WPXS to provide improved service to viewers." The Media Bureau recently approved the change (See 1410310063).

Chicago ABC AM radio station WLS refused to disclose the sponsor behind political ads run by Independence USA PAC despite being notified that the PAC’s sole sponsor is former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, said Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause and the Sunlight Foundation in a news release Thursday. “The Communications Act and the FCC’s sponsorship identification rules require broadcasters to go beyond simply naming the entity that paid for an ad,” the release said. WLS Chicago's listeners “were left completely in the dark as to the fact that Michael Bloomberg, hiding behind a deceptively named organization, was spending large sums of money to influence their votes and the outcome of the election,” the public interest groups said. A complaint against WLS was filed with the FCC by the groups, the release said.

The U.S. Department of Justice is seeking comment on its proposed settlement to allow Media General to buy LIN Media for $1.5 billion, said a notice in the Federal Register. The settlement agreement mirrors an agreement between the two companies announced when they applied for transaction approval, and involves Media General's divesting seven stations (see 1410300060). Comments are due within the next 60 days, the notice said.