The FCC unanimously approved an order Tuesday on expanding audio description requirements that had been set for Thursday’s commissioners' meeting. As expected (see 2310160038), the final item had little change from the draft version, and will phase in audio description requirements for an additional 10 designated market areas each year for 10 years, until the rules cover all 210 U.S. DMAs by 2035.

The window for new low-power FM applications will be delayed until Dec. 6 and the accompanying filing freeze extended to Dec. 13, the FCC Media Bureau said in a public notice in Tuesday’s Daily Digest. The window had been set to open Nov. 1. The bureau moved the window after a request from LPFM advocates who said the delay would lead to more participation. “We find that it would serve the public interest to delay the LPFM filing window by several weeks to afford interested parties sufficient time to prepare applications for new construction permits for this important service,” the bureau said. The LPFM window will now be Dec. 6-13, the PN said.

The full FCC approved a $2.3 million penalty against two New York City pirate radio operators, plus an $80,000 penalty for another pirate radio operator in La Grande, Oregon, according to two forfeiture orders released Friday. An FCC official confirmed that new Commissioner Anna Gomez voted on the items, though it's not clear if they were her first votes since being sworn in. The full commission -- then without Gomez -- approved two notices of apparent liability against the same offenders in March (see 2303150075). The $2.3 million forfeiture against Cesar Ayora and Luis Ayora in Queens, New York, stems from a series of violations going back to 2013. Their pirate station, called Radio Impacto2, ran on 105.5 FM for years despite an unpaid previous forfeiture order, repeated warnings and seized broadcast equipment, the order said. The station has a website advertising it as the official station for Ecuadorians in New York and it appears to still be operating. The NAL noted the station was operating in March. The Avoras and the station didn’t comment. The $80,000 penalty against La Grande, Oregon-based Thomas Barnes references pirate operations going back to 2018. Barnes refers to himself as “the Eastern Oregon pirate” in his content, including in audio posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, last week in which he claimed to still be broadcasting on the same FM station listed in his forfeiture order. The station's website also bills itself as Pirate Radio Eastern Oregon. Barnes couldn’t be reached for comment.

The FCC must dismiss a petition to deny the license renewal of Fox-owned WTXF-Philadelphia, said NAB and the Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasters in comments posted Thursday in docket 23-293 (see 2310100068). The petition, which pointed to false information aired by the Fox News cable channel about the 2020 election, “risks setting a factually, legally, and constitutionally suspect precedent to the potential future detriment of thousands of stations that serve their communities,” they said. An FCC renewal proceeding should be concerned with the conduct of the local station, but the petition from the Media and Democracy Project ignores WTXF, focusing on content that aired on Fox News and Dominion's defamation lawsuit over that cable programming, said the trade groups. “It appears that Petitioners targeted WTXF because it was the only pending license renewal application associated with Fox Television Stations, LLC, and not due to material actually aired by the station itself,” the filing said. The FCC’s news distortion policy doesn’t apply to any content outside the broadcast medium, and the defamation settlement with Dominion doesn’t meet the “heavy burden” required of petitions to deny, the broadcast groups said. The FCC should reject MAD’s “invitation to reinterpret the FCC’s character policies -- which apply to all broadcast licensees -- in the context of a single station’s license renewal proceeding,” said NAB and PAB. If the FCC seeks to reexamine its policies on charter qualifications it “should conduct a general notice and comment proceeding focused on those policies,” the groups said. MAD didn’t comment.

NAB and aviation groups plan to submit a joint proposal addressing concerns that increased power levels for digital FM could lead to interference with airplane instruments (see 2309220071), said comments from NAB and Garmin and a joint letter from NAB and several aviation trade groups posted in docket 22-405. The Aerospace Industries Association, the General Aviation Manufacturers Association and NAB ”intend to report back to the Commission and relevant staff within the Media Bureau and the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau regarding our joint progress and any concrete results arising from our collective efforts as soon as possible,” said the joint letter. The FCC should proceed with plans to allow increased digital FM power levels “on a separate track” and not allow the aviation interference concerns to “unreasonably” impede the expansion of digital radio service, NAB said. Potential interference to airplane instruments “is confined to the small subset of digital FM stations that operate on 107.9 MHz,” NAB said. NAB, iHeartCommunications and several other broadcasters also said the FCC shouldn’t create new interference reporting procedures for digital FM stations. They also said the agency shouldn’t restrict the degree “super-powered” FM stations -- those that already operate with power levels in excess of their class, largely due to grandfathering -- can increase the power of their digital FM signal. Press Communications said the FCC has a duty to protect Class A FM stations from possible increased interference from digital FM stations. The push for increased power by digital FM companies such as Xperi is motivated by profit and would come “at the expense of small broadcasters,” Press said.

Former Patrick Communications media brokers Greg Guy and Larry Patrick each formed his own firm but will continue working “both separately and together as needed on specific projects,” said a news release this week. In August, the then co-owner of Patrick Communications, Patrick's wife, Susan, pleaded guilty to falsifying tax filings with the IRS to conceal $9.5 million in earnings by her husband and herself. Susan Patrick resigned from the firm and said then that Larry Patrick and Guy had no knowledge of the false tax documents (see Ref:2309050083]). Patrick Communications has been dissolved, but Larry Patrick’s new firm is Patrick Media Brokerage, which will operate out of Cody, Wyoming. Guy’s new firm, Tideline Partners, will operate out of Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.

The FCC Media Bureau approved Tennessee TV’s request to shift WKNX-TV Knoxville from Channel 7 to Channel 21, said an order in docket 23-244 in Friday’s Daily Digest. The bureau also is seeking comment in docket 23-336 on a modification request from TV-49 to change the community of license of its unbuilt station from Wittenburg, Wisconsin, to Shawano, Wisconsin, said an NPRM.

Neither the retirement of Fox Corp. Chair Rupert Murdoch (see 2309210059) nor a recent administrative law judge decision in a hearing proceeding for a Tennessee radio station (see 2309150056) has much bearing on whether the FCC will take up a challenge to a Fox-owned station’s license (see 2307060065), said Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld in a post Thursday on his blog Wet Machine. The Media and Democracy Project’s petition to deny targets Murdoch as unfit to own a license, but even after retirement he will still own enough interest in Fox to be considered to have control of the station under FCC rules, Feld said. Murdoch’s retirement announcement also said he will continue to be involved in Fox's day-to-day operations, Feld said. The recently concluded hearing proceeding on whether Joseph Armstrong was fit to hold the license of WJBE Powell, Tennessee, after being convicted of lying on a tax form doesn’t shed much light on what the FCC is likely to do with MAP's petition because they involve different processes, Feld said. Armstrong’s hearing was a revocation hearing, where the FCC bears the burden of proof, but the Fox proceeding is a license renewal, he said. “Even if the case were precisely on point, the precedential value would be somewhat weak,” Feld said. The MAP petition “is still a long shot overall,” Feld said.

The radio industry is experiencing a drop in advertising due to macroeconomic issues and uncertainty about future interest rates, said a panel of radio CEOs at the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters. Marketing budgets are among the first things to be slashed when a company wants to cut costs, said iHeart Media CEO Robert Pittman. Radio groups need to “become more in tune with how people buy advertising now” and provide consumer data in the way digital companies do, he said. Any business that's affected by interest rates isn’t buying ads at the moment, said David Kantor, Urban One CEO-Radio Division and Reach Media. Perry Publishing and Broadcasting CEO Kevin Perry said increasing audience fragmentation and competition from other sources of audio content are exacerbating the problem. The advertising slump was the result of a “perfect storm” of circumstances, said Beasley Media CEO Caroline Beasley. When advertising budgets are limited due to “a teetering economy,” radio stations that serve minority populations have a harder time getting ad dollars, Perry said. Pittman said he believes the industry will see an improvement in Q4. Beasley, Pittman and Kantor said the radio industry should embrace AI. AI technology could eventually replace radio ad sellers and agency ad buyers, with customers using algorithms to calculate optimal ad buys, Kantor said. Companies that don’t use AI “will be left behind,” Beasley said. IHeart is unlikely to use AI to replace on-air talent but could use it to provide services that would otherwise be prohibitively expensive, such as translating podcasts into other languages, Pittman said. Perry, whose company is much smaller than the other three, said radio should instead embrace its connection to listeners and local businesses. “We’re in the people business,” he said.

A hearing over allegedly false transfers of control by the owners of several low-power radio and television stations is set for Oct. 1, 2024, said an order from FCC Administrative Law Judge Jane Halprin posted in docket 23-267 Monday (see 2308110063). The proceeding concerns allegations Antonio Guel transferred the stations to his niece, Jennifer Juarez, to avoid including the stations in a bankruptcy filing, although he remained in control of them. Since the hearing designation order's (HDO) August release, Juarez has waived her right to participate in the hearing and surrendered the licenses, and Guel has submitted documentation showing that his company targeted in the HDO, the Hispanic Christian Community Network, has been dissolved. In Monday’s order, Halprin ruled that due to those events, the hearing proceeding would continue forward on only some of the matters originally listed in the HDO, focusing on Guel’s alleged misrepresentation and fitness to hold an FCC license. In Monday’s order, Halprin also noted broadcast attorney Dan Halpert’s representation of both Juarez and Guel, along with the possibility he could be called as a witness in the proceeding, could create conflicts of interest and mean Guel would need another attorney. “Resolution of any client conflicts is primarily Mr. Alpert’s duty, but the Presiding Judge raises the issue at this early stage of the proceeding to forestall any potential future delay that conflict issues might cause,” the order said. Alpert didn’t comment.