The FCC updated the Licensing and Management System (LMS), making major change applications for Class A, low-power TV and TV translator stations available in advance of the Aug. 20 lifting of the 14-year freeze on channel change filings (see 2405290068), a public notice in Friday’s Daily Digest said. “Effective immediately, applicants are permitted to input information in their major change application, but should not submit their application prior to August 20, 2024,” the PN said. Applications filed before Aug. 20 “will be dismissed and applicants will need to re-file once the freeze is lifted.” The PN also included a reminder that after updates to the FCC’s TVStudy software, all TV broadcast applications filed after Aug. 1, must use 2020 Census Data for conducting interference analyses. “Failure to do so will require amendment and may result in dismissal of applications as defective,” the PN said.

The Media Bureau granted permission for Amar Broadcasting to exceed the 25% foreign-ownership benchmark, a declaratory ruling in Friday’s Daily Digest said. Amar is the parent company of KNTS (AM) Seattle owner BAAZ, and the ruling allows Canadian citizen Sukhdev Dhillon to own 100% of Amar. No oppositions were filed in response to the petition, the ruling said.

The full FCC approved a $2.3 million forfeiture against Bronx, New York, pirate radio broadcaster Johnny Peralta, an order released Thursday said. Peralta was operating the pirate station La Mia Radio for years. The Enforcement Bureau initially contacted him in 2018. EB agents have noted La Mia Radio’s continued unauthorized broadcasts ever since, according to a notice of apparent liability in November. Peralta didn’t respond to the NAL, the FCC said. The forfeiture is the maximum allowed under law. “Some of the most egregious pirate radio operations are run by individuals who have ignored prior enforcement actions by the Commission,” the forfeiture order said. “As such, it merits the strongest possible enforcement measures to the fullest extent of the law.” The FCC lacks the power to enforce collecting fines, especially from non-licensees. Only DOJ can bring delinquent forfeiture subjects to court, but broadcasters have told us that the high fine amounts like Peralta’s are expected to make pursuing collection more worthwhile for prosecutors. Peralta couldn’t be reached for comment. The forfeiture order was originally part of the agenda for Wednesday's FCC meeting, though it was listed only as an Enforcement Bureau item, as is typical for enforcement actions. A deletion notice was released late Thursday.

It isn’t a conflict of interest for Dan Alpert to represent multiple people in an FCC hearing proceeding because all the parties have given him permission and their testimony doesn’t conflict, the broadcast attorney said in a filing posted Monday in docket 23-267. Alpert was responding to a request from Administrative Law Judge Jane Halprin, who temporarily suspended discovery in the proceeding over conflict concerns (see 2407230051). The facts conceded by Alpert’s client Antonio Guel don’t conflict with those of Guel’s daughter, Maria Guel, or his niece, Jennifer Juarez, Alpert said. The Enforcement Bureau claims Guel arranged a false sale of broadcast stations to Juarez while maintaining control of them, and that Maria Guel runs companies involved in the transaction. Alpert, who practices in Virginia, also told Halprin that he checked on the ethics of his position with the Commonwealth of Virginia Bar counsel. “As long as all three persons were aware of the simultaneous representation, that representation of all three persons was permissible,” Alpert said. “If at any point in time, circumstances change, and an actual conflict arises, that undersigned counsel will discontinue such simultaneous representation.”

Filings for mandatory disaster information reporting and network outage reporting systems would hinder broadcasters during disasters, NAB, Morgan Murphy Media and Beasley Media said in a meeting with Public Safety Bureau staff Wednesday. “Unlike other services, broadcast stations must report timely news and information about a disaster as a situation unfolds,” an ex parte filing posted in docket 21-346 Friday said: “Mandatory reporting would distract station staff from this core duty.” Commenters in the docket who support mandatory reporting for broadcasters “demonstrate a lack of real-world experience in dealing with emergencies or understanding of the competing demands on station staff during a disaster,” the filing said. The FCC’s suggestion that mandatory reporting would lead to more effective allocation of emergency resources doesn’t ring true, the broadcasters said. “With all due respect to emergency responders, filing a DIRS report has rarely, if ever, led to government assistance that helps a station maintain or restore service.”

The FCC’s rule barring stations from using affiliation deals to get around ownership limits falls outside the agency's congressional authority, Gray Television told the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Wednesday. In a supplemental brief (docket 22-14274), Gray said the appellate court should determine that authority's scope and meaning without deference to the commission. The 11th Circuit earlier this month requested a brief about the effects of the U.S. Supreme Court's Loper Bright decision (see 2407110058). Gray is appealing a $518,000 forfeiture order over its alleged violation of the FCCs "Note 11" affiliation deals rule related to its purchase of the network affiliation of an Anchorage TV station (see 2301040059). The FCC has 14 days to respond to the supplemental brief. In its brief, Gray said Loper Bright mandates that the court first resolve whether the agency had statutory authority to promulgate and enforce Note 11. It said while Congress gave the FCC regulatory authority over license transfers, Note 11 and the forfeiture order are about what the FCC considers the "functional equivalent" of a license transfer.

The Media and Democracy Project submitted a petition with 25,532 signatures calling for an FCC hearing on whether Fox News' conduct during the 2020 election violated the agency's requirements for broadcast licensees. The item was filed on the one-year anniversary of MAD’s original filing challenging the license renewal of Fox-owned station WTXF-TV Philadelphia and includes signatories from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, MAD said. The FCC has not acted on MAD’s petition to deny. “These thousands of signees want satisfaction for the discord Fox has sown, alienating friend from friend and family member from family member over contrivances it pushed to preserve ratings and profits,” the filing said. “While FOX has peppered this proceeding with politicians and sports teams, we have dedicated our efforts to educating everyday Americans about the FCC’s role in determining whether FOX's leadership meets the character expected of a broadcast licensee,” MAD Executive Director Milo Vassalo said. A New York Times article Tuesday reported that Fox Chairman Rupert Murdoch is involved in a court battle with several of his children over changes to the family trust and ownership of Fox. Former Fox and Disney executive Preston Padden, who supports MAD’s petition, said the FCC would have to act if control of Fox is transferred from Rupert Murdoch to one of his sons. Benton Institute for Broadband & Society Senior Counselor Andrew Schwartzman said that while the agency normally resolves license challenges before a transfer of control is complete, it could simply deny the MAD petition or refuse action on the transfer. Fox didn’t comment.

Religious radio broadcaster theDove Media filed a petition for review against the FCC’s February equal employment opportunity order in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, according to court documents and a news release from Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF), which represents theDove and owner Perry Atkinson. The EEO order was also challenged in filings in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and at the FCC (see 2405130041). The PLF release says the EEO order puts theDove at risk of being sued by third parties over “perceived disparities in the race or gender makeup of their workforce” and is outside the FCC’s authority. “The Constitution gives Congress alone the power to make laws and, therefore, Congress cannot give that power away to agencies,” PLF Senior Attorney Oliver Dunford said in the release. “Nor can these agencies accomplish indirectly what they are precluded from doing directly.”

FCC Administrative Law Judge Jane Halprin has ordered broadcast attorney Dan Alpert to explain how he can represent multiple clients whose interests conflict with each other in a hearing. The proceeding involves allegedly false transfers of control of low-power radio and TV stations (see 2310020059). Alpert declined to comment. The proceeding concerns allegations that Antonio Guel transferred stations to his niece, Jennifer Juarez, to avoid including them in a bankruptcy filing, although he remained in control of the stations. Guel’s daughter, Maria Guel, allegedly controls other companies involved in the transaction (see 2402060049). The Enforcement Bureau filed an emergency motion Monday asking for Halprin to take action against Antonio Guel’s attorney, Alpert, after he informed it that he would be representing both Maria Guel and Juarez in depositions scheduled for next week. “Mr. Alpert now represents two witnesses in the case who are likely to provide information that is directly and materially adverse to the interests of his original client, Mr. Guel,” the EB motion said. Halprin cautioned Alpert in February about apparent conflicts of interest in the case. “It is a fundamental rule of practicing law that a lawyer may not represent clients in the same matter whose interests are adverse to each other,” wrote Halprin in Tuesday’s order. While Halprin said that rule can be waived if the parties provide informed consent, the EB argued that some conflicts in this matter can't be waived under DC Bar ethics rules. “The responsibility is on Mr. Alpert to know and adhere to applicable rules of professional conduct,” Halprin wrote. “At the same time, the Presiding Judge must be mindful that the Administrative Procedure Act and the Commission’s rules allow witnesses to be represented by counsel.” The EB “cannot risk incurring the cost of these depositions at the public’s expense only to have Mr. Guel or Ms. Juarez later claim ineffective assistance of counsel and/or otherwise challenge the integrity or validity of this entire proceeding,” the EB said. Tuesday’s order gives Alpert until Friday to respond and “include an explanation of how he reconciles his simultaneous representation of Mr. Guel, Ms. Guel, and Ms. Juarez with applicable rules of professional conduct.”

The FCC treats its quadrennial review process “like a basketball center blocking shots,” broadcasters say as they challenge the FCC’s 2018 quadrennial review order in an opening brief in the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The broadcasters argue that the 8th Circuit should vacate not only the 2018 QR order, but also local TV and radio ownership limits, because the FCC has failed to justify retaining them. The agency “never seriously examines whether its rules are in the public interest as a result of clear competition; instead it simply swats at certain alternative proposals,” says the filing from NAB, Zimmer Radio, Tri-State Communications, Nexstar and Beasley Media. Though the brief was filed Monday, as of Tuesday afternoon, it was still inaccessible on the 8th Circuit’s website because the clerk of the court must approve filings before they go public. “Congress directed the Commission to determine whether its broadcast ownership rules remain necessary in light of competitive changes; that undertaking requires a fresh look each time, and an affirmative, reasoned justification if the Commission determines the limits are still necessary,” the brief says. “The Commission failed that task.” The petitioner brief and an intervenor brief from the ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC affiliate station groups argue that the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision overturning Chevron deference means the 8th Circuit should rule that the agency has violated Section 202h of the 1996 Communications Act. A collection of radio broadcasters also filed as intervenors. The QR order “disregards the deregulatory nature of section 202(h) and ignores competition from non-broadcast sources,” the joint brief says. The broadcasters also argue that the QR order’s inclusion of channels hosted on multicast stations or low-power stations under the Top Four prohibition violated the First Amendment. “The Commission may not regulate broadcasters’ programming choices -- the Communications Act does not authorize it, and the First Amendment forbids it,” the joint filing says. “It is long past time for the FCC to modernize its broadcast ownership rules; these are relics from a bygone era, created before the internet, smartphones, social media and streaming,” NAB CEO Curtis LeGeyt says in a release. “NAB's brief succinctly demonstrates to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit that the FCC has failed to justify that these rules remain necessary to serve the public in light of the immense competition broadcasters face in today's media marketplace."