The percentage in the U.S. of Internet-only TV homes soon will surpass that of homes that get their TV exclusively through an antenna, CEA said in a study. It estimated 6 percent of TV homes rely exclusively on an antenna, compared with 5 percent that rely on the Internet only for TV programming. “We are at a pivotal point in consumer behavior, as fewer and fewer American homes are now using only antennas to watch their favorite television programs, and more and more households turn to the Internet as a source of TV content,” said CEA President Gary Shapiro in a news release Thursday (http://bit.ly/1kCrMhj). He cited “a nine-year, downward trend that shows antenna-only viewership remains at all-time lows and an upward trend of consumers watching video programming when and where they choose.” Despite the explosive growth of smartphones and tablets, the TV “remains the most commonly owned video viewing device and our primary means of watching video content,” said Brian Markwalter, CEA senior vice president-research and standards. “But significantly more households that use televisions to watch TV programming are now also turning to alternative video devices at home. The explosive growth of Internet programming means consumers now have better options to watch video content on different types of screens they may own.” Viewership on connected devices continues to grow, with nearly half of TV homes surveyed reporting watching video on a laptop or smartphone in the last year, CEA said. More than a third of homes reported watching video on a tablet or desktop PC in the last year, it said. CEA used the survey results to trumpet its advocacy for broadcasters to free up their spectrum. “As consumers continue to turn to other devices and services for TV programming -- devices that need wireless spectrum to deliver the content we want anytime, anywhere -- it’s clear that the free, public spectrum given to broadcasters could be put to much better use,” Shapiro said. NAB declined comment.

Broadcasters won the lottery to determine which venue will hear petitions for review against new FCC rules on joint sales agreements (JSA) and its handling of the quadrennial review of media ownership rules, according to court documents. The matter will be heard in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, where NAB, Howard Stirk Holdings and NexStar Broadcasting had all filed court challenges. Prometheus Radio filed its own challenge in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, necessitating the lottery. The matter of venue may not be over, said Georgetown Law Institute for Public Representation senior counselor Andrew Schwartzman, representing Prometheus. The public interest group has filed a motion to transfer the case to the 3rd Circuit, and it’s likely to be granted, Schwartzman said. The 3rd circuit has handled challenges to the quadrennial review in the past, Schwartzman said, making it the likely venue for the case.

Broadcast company Howard Stirk Holdings filed its own challenge to the FCC’s rule that makes joint sales agreements where one station is responsible for over 15 percent of another’s ad sales attributable for ownership calculations, joining the NAB petition filed last week (CD June 2 p1). The JSA rule is “arbitrary and capricious” and violates the Administrative Procedure Act, HSH said in its filing in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit . HSH had applied for the first waiver under the new JSA rules to allow it to participate in the Sinclair/Allbritton deal (CD April 24 p12), but Sinclair announced a restructuring of that deal to comply with the FCC’s new JSA regulations, which means HSH can’t participate even with a waiver (CD May 30 p4). One of the few remaining broadcast operations owned by an African American, HSH had asked for the waiver on public interest grounds.

The FCC released a public notice (http://bit.ly/1nIKTtt) Tuesday on the aggregate interference cap and the use of proxy channels when preserving coverage area and population served in repacking stations after the incentive auction. Commenters in the auction proceeding had argued that an FCC policy in the Auction Order to consider population served during the process of channel reassignment would not protect stations from aggregate interference after the repacking. In the public notice the FCC released an analysis showing that “approximately one percent of all stations in simulated channel reassignments received new interference above a one percent cap, and that the majority of stations received new aggregate interference well below the pairwise interference limit adopted by the Commission,” the PN said. The PN includes “constraint files” to assist interested parties in conducting their own repacking studies. “To generate sufficient data from which to draw meaningful results, Commission staff performed 100 simulations using several variations of the approach we developed for creating simulated sets of stations to be repacked,” the PN said.

TVfreedom.org urged the pay-TV industry to stop “superfluous” price increases. It also asked pay-TV providers to offer consumers more flexibility on multiyear contracts, and give consumers “assurances that their monthly bills won’t continue to increase at four times the rate of inflation, year after year,” a spokesman said Monday in a blog post (http://bit.ly/1j7Ml6h). The record profits in the cable industry are derived “directly from the average consumer’s wallet,” he said. With few viable alternatives, most subscribers, “who are locked in to service contracts, feel like they have little choice but to pay the hefty monthly pay-TV bills that continue to go up,” he said.

The FCC Enforcement Bureau fined an unlicensed FM radio operator $25,000 for operating a pirate station in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The FCC previously imposed a penalty on Damian Allen for operating a pirate radio station in Pompano Beach, Florida, on the same unauthorized frequency, the bureau said in a forfeiture order (http://bit.ly/1hsx7IS). That Allen would commit the same violation on the same frequency “demonstrates a deliberate disregard for the Commission’s authority and its rules,” it said. The bureau also proposed a $20,000 fine against Marc-Knus Charles for apparently operating an unlicensed FM station in Pompano Beach. The FCC warned Charles of the violation in writing, “but he nevertheless continued to operate illegally,” it said in a notice of apparent liability (http://bit.ly/1pAuarX). The bureau said the violation justifies a $10,000 upward adjustment to the $10,000 base forfeiture.

An NAB challenge to the FCC’s increased scrutiny of sharing arrangements should be dismissed because the public notice announcing the processing guidelines was not an FCC final order, the agency argued in a motion to dismiss filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Friday. A response to the NAB’s May 12 petition against the guidelines, the FCC filing says, “The Communications Act makes clear that courts lack jurisdiction to review actions taken by FCC staff pursuant to delegated authority.” The NAB petition should also be dismissed because the broadcasters didn’t file for review with the FCC first, and because the FCC hasn’t yet acted on the public notice, said the commission, so NAB “failed to exhaust its administrative remedies."

The FCC Media Bureau ordered Duncan Cable TV in Wilmington, Vermont, to carry low-power TV station WYCX-CD on its cable system in Wilmington. WYCX claimed it requested mandatory carriage on Duncan’s system in November, and Duncan hasn’t responded in writing, the bureau said in an order the FCC posted Friday (http://bit.ly/SiDIcX). Duncan’s system has more than 35 activated channels, “and not more than one-third of its channels are filled with broadcast signals,” the bureau said. Duncan failed to file an opposition disputing WYCX’s assertions, it said. WYCX provides coverage in the Vermont towns of Manchester and Londonderry and in South Charlestown, New Hampshire.

The Puerto Rico Radio Broadcasters Association, Utah Broadcasters Association and West Virginia Broadcasters Association support a proposal to establish a method for disseminating emergency alert system messages in non-English languages, they said. The associations were added to the joint comments filed by other state broadcasters associations in docket 04-296 (CD May 30 p10). With the addition of the three associations, all 50 state broadcasters associations are represented in the initial comments, the associations said (http://bit.ly/1nLCTFH).

Canyon Media Group opposed JER’s proposal to substitute Channel 246C for Channel 280C at Toquerville, Utah. Canyon said a noncommercial educational (NCE) station allotment at Channel 246C isn’t viable “based on the site restrictions that must be placed on the allotment,” in comments in docket 14-54 (http://bit.ly/1pss0uw). Substituting Channel 281C for Channel 280C for the NCE vacant allotment at Toquerville would be a more efficient spectrum allocation, it said. Canyon owns the translator K245BF at Cedar City, Utah, at Channel 245, “which would be first adjacent to petitioner’s proposed allotment at Channel 246C at Toquerville,” Canyon said. Granting allotment on Channel 246 would ultimately require Canyon’s translator to terminate service at Cedar City, it said.