TVNewsCheck

The new Federal Communications Commission rule barring Top 4 TV stations from negotiating retransmission consent deals together in the same market will go into effect June 18 -- the same day petitions seeking agency reconsideration of the new ban are now due.

In addition, legal challenges to the new bar on joint retransmission negotiations will be due in federal appeals court by July 18, they added.

The clock on the legal filing deadlines was set into motion by the official publication of the FCC’s March 31 order in the Federal Register. The Federal Register, according to the agency’s website, is planning to publish the official order on the FCC’s March 31 crackdown on joint sales agreements, setting off another set of legal filing deadlines.

[Commentary] If you want real insight on where the broadcast television industry is heading -- on its long-term viability -- you have to go to Washington. There, the Advanced Television Systems Committee is working on the next-generation TV system -- 3.0 -- that will, it is hoped, allow broadcasters to keep pace in the evolution of video quality and become a truly mobile medium.

There, too, the FCC is marching forward with its plans to reallocate a huge swatch of spectrum from broadcasting to wireless broadband through an incentive auction. The plans involve a repacking or a reorganization of the TV band that could severely hobble broadcasting if not done right. For broadcasters, the latest news from the two Washington venues is not good.

Sam Matheny, Capitol Broadcasting’s VP of policy and innovation, has several “big buckets” of issues that he says need to be studied and resolved before a successful ATSC 3.0 transition can take place.

Among them are determining the impact of the transition on the audience, the possibility for interference, the duration of the transition, the availability of spectrum and the impact of the transition on direct-to-home satellite, cable TV and telecommunications TV partners.

The pay TV industry has scored points in its continuing campaign to reform retransmission consent, both on Capitol Hill and at the Federal Communications Commission -- but any significant additional reforms are more likely to come from the agency than Congress, industry lobbyists say.

“The bigger threat on retrans[mission] looms at the FCC with a chairman who is demonstrably hostile to the terrestrial broadcast system,” says one leading broadcast attorney who asked not to be identified.

Whether Congress ever takes additional steps to reform retransmission or not, Chairman Wheeler has already teed up a further notice of rulemaking seeking comment on whether to eliminate the agency’s network nonduplication and syndicated exclusivity rules, regulations that make it easier for stations to protect the exclusivity of their programming in their markets.

National Association of Broadcasters President Gordon Smith encouraged television engineers to get on with the task of developing a new broadcast TV standard that can provide truly ubiquitous service.

“As broadcasters, it is our job to make sure our signals are available on every device and everywhere -- smartphones, laptops, tablets -- and of course, multiple channels of digital TV,” Smith said at the opening of the annual conference of the Advanced Television Systems Committee, which is working on the standard.

“In order for TV to succeed, we must continue to move quickly to increase the number of distribution channels and platforms for our valuable local content, and we must respond to the needs of an ever-more mobile audience.” While ATSC works on the so-called ATSC 3.0 standard, Smith said, NAB will work to preserve TV spectrum.

David Smith, CEO-president of Sinclair Broadcast Group, sees congressional and/or court action required to rebalance the regulatory environment so that broadcasters can effectively compete with broadband, telephone and cable companies.

In the meantime, Smith said, uncertainty surrounding the regulatory environment is making it tough on broadcasters. Noting that the National Association of Broadcasters recently sent a cease-and-desist order to the Federal Communications Commission over its plan to scrutinize shared service agreements on a case-by-case basis, Smith wondered what's next.

"What, if anything, is the NAB going to do in the legal context?" he asked. "You've got Commissioner Pai standing up making some pretty bold statements -- [in effect] will someone please sue the FCC because they're violating the law. It may be reasonable to assume it will end up in some venue with a judge making the determination. If it's found to be illegal, then what do we do?”

Sinclair is following the FCC’s new marching orders on JSAs, selling three stations so that it can close on its $985 million acquisition of Allbritton. Smith said he views adoption of a new broadcast standard -- ATSC 3.0 -- as an essential tool to maintain competitiveness.

"We need to be everywhere 24 hours a day, 365 on every device," Smith declared, acknowledging details remain to be worked out. "Anything less than that is not good for the industry."

Sinclair Broadcast Group is moving forward with its plan to develop an alternative "next-generation" TV broadcast standard to the one that the Advanced Television Systems Committee is working on.

Tommy Eng, president of ONE Media, a joint venture between Sinclair Broadcast Group and Coherent Logix, announced in a press release that the Next Generation Broadcast Platform would be a "converged media platform that extends 3GPP LTE standards to incorporate reception from existing tall-tower TV antennas, opening up new business opportunities for broadcasters and overcoming existing mobile DTV reception limitations.”

Mark Aitken, VP, advanced technology, Sinclair Broadcast Group, said ATSC is not up to the task for developing the standard that broadcasters need. “ATSC does not offer a place for how we as an industry can work to shape regulation and work with all of the government bodies to make a next-generation system happen," he said.

It's unusual for a trade association to send a cease-and-desist letter to a federal regulatory agency, but that's just what National Association of Broadcasters did.

It told the Federal Communications Commission to back off on its transaction-based regulation of shared services agreement by May 8 or else. The NAB didn't specify the or-else, but we can presume that it is a court challenge. Either that or the NAB intends to send a single-combat champion to duke it out with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler right there on 12th Street SW.

The NAB contends that even though the FCC acknowledged in its March 31 order banning joint sales agreements that it has yet to build enough of a record to regulate shared service agreements (SSAs), it has already begun to do so in the context of the station sales reviews based on a March 12 public notice. In that notice, the FCC said it would "closely scrutinize" all deals that appear to circumvent local ownership limits through joint sales agreements (JSAs), SSAs, local marketing agreements and financial entanglements. By encompassing SSAs, the notice is "fatally premature," the NAB says in its threatening letter.

The notice "cannot be squared with the March 31 decision, reflects unreasoned action and sends conflicting signals to broadcasters as to the rules of the game for sharing arrangements."

The NAB's action reflects mounting frustration among broadcasters who are seeking FCC approval of deals that involve the alphabet soup of ownership rule work-arounds. The deals were done in good faith and based on FCC precedent.

For the most part, TV news targeting African Americans has been a bust. Two now defunct cable networks, Black Family Channel and New Urban Entertainment, tried it in the early 2000s, and the pioneering BET now limits itself to breaking news and occasional specials, eschewing regular newscasts. But despite some skepticism, the concept is showing new signs of life at both the local and national levels.

The idea for one of them, the Black Television News Channel, dates to 2008 when former-Rep JC Watts (R-OK), a founding partner in the venture, announced his intention to raise $20 million to build the operation. Watts’ partners include Bob Brillante, a cable industry veteran who founded the Florida News Channel, a regional 24-hour cable channel; former US House of Representatives Budget Director Steve Pruitt; and Frank Watson, a media management consultant.

Brillante says the demise of black-owned TV stations has fueled the need for black-targeted programming -- to say nothing of the potential money that can be made serving an audience that watches 37% more TV than other groups. According to Brillante, BTNC programming plans call for a nightly one-hour newscast featuring “culturally specific” content as well a business news show and a morning news show. Other slots will be filled with talk shows.

The key contract it wants to resurrect is with Comcast. It had agreed to air BTNC in seven of the country’s top 10 African American markets -- Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington, Atlanta, Detroit, Miami and Baltimore.

Univision CEO Randy Falco said that federal regulators should at the very least impose "much tougher restrictions" on Comcast as conditions on approving Comcast's merger with Time Warner Cable.

"Based on what I have seen and heard, I am still concerned that the proposed merger could be bad for competition and most importantly, bad for Hispanic audiences," Falco said during the company's first quarter earnings call. "The fact is that there is not one other media or telecommunications company that has the level of vertical integration of Comcast -- I'm talking about video, broadband and content -- not Google, not AT&T, not Facebook, not the satellite providers. And when it comes to video and broadband, they are by far and away the largest provider in the country."

According to Falco, the combination of Comcast and Time Warner Cable will become the dominant provider or TV and broadband not only in 30% of all TV homes, but also in 91% of Hispanic TV homes. "That gives this new company staggering influence over Hispanic consumers." The risk of the merger really is not hypothetical, especially for Univision, which competes directly with Comcasts's NBC, Telemundo and NBC Sports, Falco said.