Monty Tayloe

The FCC is moving forward with a rulemaking process based on the work of the Downloadable Security Technology Advisory Committee (DSTAC) even as pay-TV, content and consumer electronics companies announced (see 1601270023) the formation of a group opposing such a plan. The proposals are contained in an NPRM that FCC officials said will be circulated to eighth-floor offices Thursday and voted on at the FCC's Feb. 18 meeting. Communications Daily had first reported that the NPRM was coming (see 1512150072). Proponents framed it as injecting much-needed competition into the pay-TV device market, while cable and other incumbents criticized it.

The window opens Friday for Class C and D AM stations to file applications to relocate FM translators. Most of those applications will likely be filed that day despite the window's three-month span, broadcast attorneys told us Tuesday. Since such applications are first-come, first-served, stations have every reason to try to lay claim to a chunk of the FM band they can use before another station occupies it, said Fletcher Heald broadcast lawyer Frank Montero.

Low-power TV challenges to FCC rules could be a threat to the incentive auction, according to attorneys and recent court and commission filings. It's "impossible" to "harmonize the goals of the Spectrum Act" with protecting LPTV stations in the incentive auction, said the FCC in a brief filed Friday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in response to LPTV broadcasters Beach TV and Mako (see 1512110057).

FCC proposals to further loosen FCC broadcast foreign ownership rules continue (see 1512220056) to receive broad support, in reply comments filed in docket 15-236 last week. Comcast, Media General, the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council, and NAB supported FCC proposals to make it easier for broadcasters to be foreign-owned, align broadcaster foreign ownership rules with those for common carriers, and update the rules to account for modern corporate ownership structures and SEC rules.

A draft rulemaking notice on proposed improvements to the emergency alert system will seek comment on improving security for alerting systems, creating a standardized, uniform format for state EAS plans, and EAS test codes, said an FCC official.

The FCC changed the way it issues FCC registration numbers (FRNs) and requirements for Form 323-E, it said in an order released Wednesday. The commission will now issue special restricted use FRNs (RUFRNs) within the commission’s registration system (CORES) that are to be used solely for filing broadcast ownership reports, the order said: “The Commission believes that the RUFRN will allow for sufficient unique identification of individuals listed on broadcast ownership reports without necessitating the disclosure to the Commission of individuals’ full Social Security Numbers.” The order also extends the biennial filing deadline, reduces the number of filings required and improves the reporting of other broadcast and newspaper interests.

The FCC has been summoning for meetings industry entities associated with set-top boxes and the Downloadable Security Technology Advisory Committee, said industry officials and a series of ex parte filings. Groups pushing for a rulemaking to come out of the DSTAC's report are pushing to get an item on the agenda of an FCC meeting, while multichannel video programming distributors and others opposed to the FCC's acting on the report are trying to keep the rulemaking process from proceeding, an attorney following the DSTAC process told us.

Uncertainty about the rules is a problem with the FCC's net neutrality order, Commissioner Ajit Pai said during an interview on C-SPAN’s The Communicators, in a segment to be shown Saturday. He cited Chairman Tom Wheeler’s reaction to T-Mobile’s Binge On service as an example, because Wheeler initially called the service innovative and later said T-Mobile officials should come before the commission to discuss the service. Pai also discussed during the interview FCC enforcement actions, broadband deployment and partisanship at the agency. Though the commission has taken no action against T-Mobile, Pai said its being called in to discuss a new service is a harm. “No company should have to guess” whether its products are allowed under FCC rules, Pai said. The FCC reaction to Binge On sets a precedent of the agency “jumping to the tune” of special interest group protests, Pai said.

Broadcaster participation in the Form 177 window for the reverse auction has “encouraged” the FCC, said Incentive Auction Task Force Chairman Gary Epstein in a statement Wednesday. The deadline for such applications was 6 p.m. Tuesday. Though numerous broadcaster and industry officials told us their sense was that participation was robust, they also said participation in the Form 177 window doesn’t necessarily equate to a high amount of spectrum going in the auction.

As the first chance for AM stations to seek FM translators in an upcoming window approaches, the underlying order approved in October (see 1510260062) is missing in action from the Federal Register, panelists noted at an FCBA Mass Media Committee brown bag lunch. The Federal Register told us it usually publishes documents given to it by other agencies within days. Last year, such delayed publication drew scrutiny from within and outside the FCC (see 1509070003 and 1509170046) and that was again on display at Tuesday's event.