The FCC has implemented four provisions of the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Reauthorization Act, it said in an order released Thursday. As required by the act, the order extends the sunset dates for some retransmission consent rules by five years, expands the prohibition on joint retransmission consent negotiation to any same market stations not commonly owned, eliminates the sweeps week protection, and stops stations from preventing pay-TV companies from importing significantly viewed distant signals. The FCC legally was able to adopt the order without a notice and comment period because the rule changes were congressionally mandated, said Fletcher Heald broadcast attorney Dan Kirkpatrick in a blog post on the rules. The FCC implementation doesn’t make any significant changes from the STELAR language, Kirkpatrick told us.

Broadcasters need to become more aggressive in meeting consumer demand, FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai told the North American Broadcast Association in a speech Thursday. "Internet streaming and podcasts are good examples of radio broadcasters reaching out to meet listeners where they are," Pai said. “Broadcast and broadband are complements, not substitutes.” That most cellphone FM chips aren’t activated is “perplexing,” Pai said. Activating them would preserve spectrum, he said. “Streaming FM stations on consumers’ smartphones using cellular networks just doesn’t make much sense. All of that data is unnecessarily using spectrum and contributing to network congestion.” But Pai said he wouldn't support mandatory activation of the chips. “If there is consumer demand for activating FM chips -- and I believe that there is -- I am optimistic that we will continue to see progress on this issue as a result of commercial negotiations and competitive pressure in the private marketplace,” said Pai, known for his role in championing radio and AM in particular. The role of government in radio is to get rid of obsolete regulations, such as those preventing cross ownership, he said. The FCC should take action on AM revitalization because it has broad support, Pai said. “It’s no secret that the FCC has been deeply divided on many key issues recently,” Pai said. “AM revitalization is one area where we could come together to advance the common good.”

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler hopes the commission's new Disability Advisory Committee will look into applications that can sync video description to smart devices used while watching video programming, he said in a blog post Friday. Wheeler also praised CBS, Fox and PBS for “going above and beyond current FCC rules” in offering programming with video description, highlighting a Stevie Wonder performancebroadcast on CBS Monday as the first musical performance program to use video description. Wonder visited the FCC months ago to discuss raising awareness for video description, Wheeler said.

Adding three emergency alert system (EAS) event codes to the National Weather Service's dissemination suite will require a factory software update, Monroe Electronics said in an ex parte notice in docket 04-296 Friday. It said it was responding to a request from the Public Safety Bureau. The NWS requested additional EAS event codes and changes to marine areas, said the company. “The sheer scale of deployment of this EAS equipment will require substantial lead time to fully implement any changes to geocodes (FIPS) [Federal Information Processing Standards] or event codes.” If the FCC approves these event codes or changes, Monroe Electronics will need to release a factory update for its four FCC EAS compliance products, and users will need to download the update from Monroe’s site and apply it to each EAS device, said the EAS equipment maker.

The Association of Public Television Stations will make a model channel sharing agreement available on its website by week's end, an APTS spokeswoman emailed us Tuesday. A previous model agreement was sent to APTS member stations in December, but a revised version is being prepared for posting online, she said.

Peak period mobile bandwidth consumption per user will increase fivefold in the next three years, said a mobile broadband bandwidth demand study done by ACG Research and sponsored by network specialist Ciena, a news release from Ciena said. Macro cell capacity requirements will increase from 260 Mbps to 1.5 Gbps in five years, the Thursday release said. Increased device penetration and new entertainment services and applications caused “growing bottlenecks” for service provider backhaul networks, it said. ACG’s study focused on peak period mobile bandwidth requirements (bits per second) instead of total data usage (bytes per month) to provide bandwidth projections, it said. Service providers should prepare to deploy mobile backhaul solutions that support 10 Gbps “to meet this projected bandwidth and ensure quality of experience,” it said.

EWTN Global Catholic Network is available on Amazon Fire TV, EWTN said in a news release Friday. Amazon Fire customers can watch live streams of EWTN’s TV and radio networks and video-on-demand of its daily homilies, devotionals, live shows and news programs in English, German and Spanish, it said. Customers in Germany, the U.K. and the U.S. can access programming through Amazon Fire or Amazon Fire TV Stick, it said. EWTN is located in the lifestyle category in Amazon Fire’s apps, it said.

Saguna Networks, a mobile edge computing company, closed a financing round Thursday with investments from SoftBank Ventures Korea and Akami Technologies, it said in a news release Thursday. Saguna Networks will use the funding to expand its presence in North America, Asia and Europe and to accelerate product development, it said.

The FCC Media Bureau Policy Division started its 2015 equal employment opportunity (EEO) audits, the commission said in a public notice Wednesday. The commission mailed its first batch of audit letters to randomly selected radio and TV stations Feb. 6, it said. The commission annually audits 5 percent of broadcast licensees’ EEO programs, it said. The notice included a list of radio and TV stations that received audit letters. Stations must post their recent EEO public file report on their website or corporate site, it said.

Canada’s broadband companies and third-party video streaming services are competing with over-the-top programming, a Moody’s Investors Service report said. Canadian TV distributors can use traditional channels, the Internet and subscription options to “counter some of the competition from Internet-based programming,” Moody’s said Wednesday. Broadband companies will survive the competition because “most of Canada’s television broadcasters are owned by its broadband companies, which also own the country’s television distributors,” it said. Advertising will continue supporting TV programming, it said.