Monty Tayloe

Broadcasters, MVPDs and public interest groups don’t agree whether sharing arrangements and top-four affiliates hosted on low-power TV multicasts are loopholes in ownership rules or ways for broadcasters to achieve scale and serve needful communities, according to several 2022 quadrennial review replies filed in docket 22-459 for Monday’s deadline (see 2303060070). Other filings urged the FCC to study news quality and broadcaster diversity, or condemned the agency for starting the 2022 QR with the 2018 version still open. That left TV and radio companies “wondering whether the Commission will recognize significant changes in the marketplace,” said Gray Television.

The full FCC should review and overturn the Standard/Tegna hearing designation order (HDO) by March 27 or the broadcasters will seek judicial review and challenge the constitutionality of the FCC’s administrative law judge, said Standard General, Tegna and Cox Media Group Friday in an application for review and motion for waiver and expedited review (see 2303160077). The HDO denies the transaction “without due process” and the FCC “should swiftly correct that overreach,” said the broadcasters. “If the Commission has not done so by 5:00 p.m. on March 27, applicants will have no choice but to seek judicial relief.”

The FCC’s administrative law judge won’t pause the hearing process and put the Standard/Tegna deal in front of the full commission, said an ALJ order Thursday. After that decision, Standard General asked three FCC commissioners to trigger “must vote” on the transaction, which would require Commissioner Geoffrey Starks to split with Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel to side with the agency’s Republicans. That's considered unlikely.

The full FCC approved a proposed $2.3 million forfeiture against two New York City pirate radio operators, plus an $80,000 proposed fine for another pirate radio operator in La Grande, Oregon, said a pair of notices of apparent liability released Wednesday. The NALs had been set for a vote at the FCC commissioners' open meeting Thursday, but a deletion notice on the items was released Tuesday.

The FCC draft ATSC 3.0 report and order circulated to 10th-floor offices would extend the substantially similar and A/322 physical layer requirements indefinitely (see 2303030064), grant NAB requests on multicast hosting in part, and doesn’t take up the matter of a 3.0 task force, FCC and broadcast industry officials told us. The item is expected to lead to a lot of lobbying from industry and negotiating among commissioners, and isn’t expected to be voted soon, industry and FCC officials told us.

A draft further NPRM on expanding audio description requirements to all broadcast markets within 10 years is expected to be unanimously approved at Thursday’s FCC commissioners’ meeting with few changes, said agency and industry officials. The proposed expansion is the most the FCC can do for audio description within the bounds of the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, said Clark Rachfal, American Council of the Blind director-advocacy and governmental affairs, urging Congress to pass legislation to require audio description for all video. The 10-year phase-in in the NPRM means blind and visually impaired consumers in smaller TV market state capitals such as Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, or Juneau, Alaska, may not have audio-described broadcasts until 2035, he said. “These are not insignificant places within the U.S.,” said Rachfal.

The FCC’s administrative law judge isn’t obligated to resolve the Standard/Tegna transaction’s proceeding (see 2303070081) before the deal’s May 22 breakup date, and the broadcasters haven’t shown the case should be kicked back to the full FCC, said response filings posted Friday in docket 22-162 from the FCC Enforcement Bureau and two sectors of the Communications Workers of America. “The Media Bureau afforded the Applicants extra time and extra opportunity to establish that they were entitled to relief,” said the joint filing from the CWA's NewsGuild and National Association of Broadcast Engineers and Technicians. It isn’t the unions’ “or the Media Bureau’s fault that the Applicants’ sales agreement is about to expire,” the filing said. “This is entirely the parties’ doing.”

The Standard/Tegna broadcasters’ motion seeking a full FCC vote on the Media Bureau’s hearing designation order (HDO) (see 2303060051) is considered a long shot due to the deal’s tight clock and the agency's current makeup but could have a slim chance, attorneys told us. The matter could also threaten the FCC’s merger review powers and use of administrative law judges, attorneys and academics said. Challenges to the constitutionality of ALJs “are happening at every agency right now,” said American University administrative law professor Jeffrey Lubbers: “If you’re facing a hearing, why wouldn’t you?”

Commenters in the FCC's 2022 quadrennial review urged the FCC to act on local broadcast ownership rules, condemned it for starting the 2022 QR without finishing the 2018 iteration, and largely took the same stances they had for the 2018 QR, according to filings by Friday’s deadline in docket 22-459. Several cited the agency’s recent hearing designation order (HDO) on Standard/Tegna.

The FCC will move to the fourth and final phase of its COVID-19 reentry plan March 13, described as a return to pre-pandemic operations, said an agency-wide email memo obtained by Communications Daily. Stricter telework provisions won’t take effect until May 15. Former and current FCC employees expect a wave of staff departures once the FCC returns more fully to in-person work, though they said the extent won’t be clear for some time. Another potential concern is whether the new FCC headquarters will be able to handle all the virtual meetings being conducted each week. The move is “consistent with recent movement by other federal agencies to complete their reentry process,” the memo said.