Low-power TV broadcasters asked the FCC to relax rules for LPTV relocation, change the name of LPTV to “Local-power” and abandon plans to require translators to meet station identification requirements, said comments posted in docket 03-185 Tuesday. The LPTV Broadcasters Association said the term “low-power” is “a modern day social injustice” that stifles the service’s growth. “As we are living in the time where the term 'master bedroom' is deemed obsolete, so should the term ‘Low Power Television,’” said the filing. The Advanced Television Broadcasting Association said the agency should provide additional flexibility for stations to relocate and certainty they won’t be displaced. “The time is ripe to begin a conversation about how to provide greater certainty for LPTV operators and encourage fresh investment in the LPTV service,” said ATBA. The National Television Association opposes proposals to require translators to meet the station ID requirements that other services do. “18 years ago the Commission decided that digital translators would not be subject to a station identification requirement,” the filing said. That led to translators being constructed without that capability, NTA said. “With the proposed new requirement, translators must retrofit their transmitters, at the cost of many thousands of dollars.”

A GeoBroadcast Solutions letter in September dismissing allegations against GBS founder-CEO Chris Devine was “blatantly inaccurate," said an ex parte letter posted Friday by Luke Allen, who sued Devine in 2009 over $70 million transferred by Allen’s father, Robert Allen, to a company run by Devine. Luke Allen’s letter was being circulated in a press email Friday from NAB, a vocal opponent of the geotargeted radio proposal supported by GBS (see 2209230070). Though the September letter from GBS in docket 20-401 (see 2209270064) argued the case was “baseless” and was withdrawn by the plaintiff, Luke Allen said the case was resolved through a settlement agreement. Allen’s father was “in declining health and suffering from diminished mental capacity” when Devine convinced him to make a series of loans to Superior Broadcasting, of which Devine was president, so Superior could buy radio stations. “Contrary to what Devine told my father, Superior never purchased or owned a single radio station,” Friday’s letter said. The money was instead diverted to Devine’s own radio and marathon-running businesses, Allen said. “In reality, Superior was nothing more than a shell company. It owned no assets and had no collections or operating revenue,” the letter said. “I would urge the FCC to fully research and independently verify any assertions or representations made by Devine or his company before approving any proposal in this proceeding,” Allen said. GBS didn’t comment.

As the broadcast industry moves toward widespread ATSC 3.0 deployment, broadcasters need to ensure consumers unable to afford new TV sets aren't left behind, FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks said Wednesday at the University of Pennsylvania Center for Technology, Innovation and Competition, per prepared remarks. "Are there low-cost converters or dongles that the consumer electronics industry can develop? Can they be distributed at community events that broadcasters frequently host or participate in?" he asked. The transition has gone on without the widespread government involvement that characterized the digital transition, "which is to be applauded," Starks said, but there might be a role for the FCC as it had in developing a congressionally mandated digital transition equipment subsidy program "or using our role as the regulator of television equipment." He said the collection of data about individual viewers that ATSC 3.0 would enable, while it's promising in the way it would better help broadcasters compete for advertising dollars, also raises privacy concerns. He said more clarity is needed about what data broadcasters plan to collect and how they will use it. Broadcasters just want "a level playing field" and privacy rules no different from other industries, said Pearl TV Managing Director Anne Schelle during a panel at the NAB Show in New York. ATSC 3.0 broadcasters will use tracking data to provide public services such as enhanced emergency information, said E.W. Scripps Vice President-Strategy and Business Development Kerry Oslund. "Some people who talk about that same data may also think about it from an advertising perspective," Oslund said. Scripps is built on "140 years of trust, and we're not going to throw it away by abusing that trust by reaching too far into the data quagmire," Oslund said.

A news release condemning attacks on the Standard/Tegna deal as racist was issued by Standard General (see 2210170051).

Pearl TV developed the FastTrack program to accelerate development and retail availability of low-cost upgrade accessory receivers for NextGen TV, it said at NAB Show New York Tuesday. The goal is to create a “diverse market of accessories” that will help bring NextGen TV features to 91% of households, Pearl TV said. Noting the ATSC standard “is not backward compatible,” Pearl TV Managing Director Anne Schelle said, “This program helps solve that." The streamlined process enabled by the FastTrack program will allow for lower accessory price points, “making it more affordable and easier" for consumers to experience NextGen TV "even without an enabled television,” Schelle said. Some viewers with TVs bought before 2020 “have yet to enjoy the rich features of the standard,” said Rob Folliard, senior vice president-government relations and distribution, Grey Television. "Device makers can now address this issue with full support and guidance to manufacture and market compatible products that consumers need and want to enjoy over-the-air television service for free,” Folliard said. The program supports manufacturers interested in making devices that support the full NextGen TV feature set, including enhanced video, audio and interactive features, Pearl said. Device requirements will be updated continuously to help manufacturers as NextGen TV evolves, it said. NextGen TV is broadcasting in more than 50 markets, reaching 55% of U.S. households. It's expected to reach 75% of households by the end of 2023; by 2024, Pearl expects over 75% of all TVs sold to be dual HDTV/NextGen TV models. Having an affordable alternative to buying a new NextGen TV receiver without a built-in display "is essential to meet the portion of the potential viewing audience that does not have television sets that support the standard," Pearl said.

Geotargeted radio runs the risk of "upend[ing] the FCC’s broadcast licensing regime, impose[ing] additional costs on broadcasters, harm[ing] local media, and undermine[ing] efforts to support an informed public connected to their community," Democratic Sens. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Ben Cardin of Maryland wrote FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel Monday. They said smaller broadcasters would bear a particular financial burden as advertisers encourage them to adopt such technologies, "shifting scarce funds away from newsrooms and community resources." They said a result of geotargeted radio might be some neighborhoods not receiving ads for employment, educational and economic opportunities. The agency didn't comment.

Comments are due Dec. 8, replies Dec. 23, on Western Radio Group's petition seeking the allotment of FM Channel 272A in Dennison, Ohio, as the community's first local service, said an FCC Media Bureau public notice in Monday's Daily Digest.

For all but the largest stations, geotargeting radio broadcasts would slice up the audience into pieces too small to attract enough ad revenue to offset the costs of the service, said Connoisseur CEO Jeff Warshaw in a letter to the FCC Monday. Comparisons of geotargeted radio ads to the digital ads aimed at consumers based on knowledge of their interests gleaned from their online activity “simply do not withstand scrutiny,” Warshaw said. With geotargeting, radio stations will still reach the same audience they always have, but chopped into “ever-smaller” pieces for any targeted ad, reducing their revenue. Geotargeted radio supporters’ argument that the service would be voluntary doesn’t ameliorate the problem, Warshaw said. “Once even one station deploys geocasting technology in a market, advertisers will pressure competing stations into doing the same, fragmenting the market. Larger broadcasters -- with bigger audience chunks to slice up -- could benefit from geotargeting by using it to target specific sections of their markets, but only at the expense of smaller more local broadcasters in those areas," Warshaw said. “Any big regional FM station could use geocasting to target businesses in the smaller communities in their service areas,” Warshaw said. “Presumably this crippling of local radio is not what the Commission wants to achieve here.” "We remain puzzled as to why some broadcasters want the FCC to micromanage the economics of the radio broadcast industry when it’s very clear that the record shows that geo-targeting promotes localism, raises no technical issues, and our proposed rule change is voluntary, with many small broadcasters welcoming the innovation," emailed geotargeting proponent GeoBroadcast Solutions.

Standard General founder Soo Kim said filings from the Communications Workers of America’s NewsGuild sector’s attorneys David Goodfriend and Andrew Schwartzman and CEO Jon Schleuss opposing the Standard/Tegna deal were "sexist and racially charged ad hominem attacks.” A Standard General news release Monday highlighted statements in NewsGuild filings warning of “anonymous foreign investment” in newsrooms and questioning whether the deal increases ownership diversity since Kim “is not barred by his race from becoming a successful entrepreneur” and Standard CEO Deb McDermott “is not barred by her gender to be selected to run a large corporation.” “To be clear, I am ethnically Korean. And I am a proud American citizen,” said Kim in the release. “These three men are attempting to define what constitutes a minority or what is the right kind of diversity -- this is offensive and inappropriate.” It's “beyond the pale for Schleuss, Goodfriend, and Schwartzman to use my ethnicity to postulate theories of my being an agent of foreign ownership,” Kim said, noting he already owns multiple radio and TV stations. “Whatever we have to say will be in what we file with the Commission,” emailed Schwartzman, who's also senior counselor at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, when asked for comment. Standard is “confident” the deal complies with all regulations, the release said. “We have submitted 3 million documents and over 12 million pages of records and have nothing but respect for the regulatory process,” the release said. “We are confident that the public statements from these three men will be seen for what they are -- sentiments that have no place in America today.”

Calls for the FCC to apply Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. rules, and repeated requests for more information on the Standard/Tegna deal are a “red herring” and a “fishing expedition” said Crossings TV CEO Frank Washington in a letter to the agency posted in docket 22-162 Thursday. Washington is a former FCC deputy bureau chief who was involved in the minority tax certificate’s creation and the Viacom deal that led to Congress repealing the program. Washington said the information requests are intended to delay the deal. “This matters because transactions are ephemeral,” and have many potential failure points, Washington said. “If timing isn’t everything, it certainly can have outcome determinitive consequences.” Calls to look at the deal through a foreign-ownership lens are “troubling,” Washington said. Standard General founder Soo Kim “and countless other Asian-American business leaders like him, are naturalized citizens who love this country and are just as committed to our laws,” Washington said. “If expanding minority ownership is something the FCC truly values, then Standard General’s acquisition of TEGNA must be had forthwith.”