The FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau dismissed three petitions for closed captioning exemption. The bureau required additional information to evaluate whether the petitioners’ programming should be exempted, it said in a public notice (http://bit.ly/1jBLrgb). Hunting Park Church of Christ in Shreveport, La., and C&G Productions in Arlington, Va., “ultimately failed to provide the requested supplemental information,” it said. They must comply with the closed captioning requirements “with regard to the programming that was the subject of their petitions by July 1, 2014, which is 90 days after the release of this Notice dismissal,” the bureau said. Kiya Amajioyi Co. of Salisbury, Md., withdrew its petition, rendering it moot, the bureau said.

Hearst Television pledged to do at least 12 minutes of nightly coverage of “election discourse” during the 30 days leading up to the 2014 general election and some primaries, the broadcaster said in a news release Tuesday. That will apply to each of Hearst’s 28 news stations, the broadcaster said. This year, the coverage will include an “In Their Own Words” feature, which offers up candidate information and video statements on political issues, that Hearst will make available online and for mobile devices 60 days before the election, the release said. Hearst said it’s partnering with fact-checking website PolitiFact for election coverage.

Nielsen and Integral Ad Science agreed to provide viewability measurement within Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings, in markets around the globe. Integral began powering the measurement tool for Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings in the U.S. in 2012, Nielsen said in a news release Monday (http://bit.ly/PbfJv3). This is part of the companies’ efforts to expand the scope of their services across new channels and platforms, Nielsen said. It said it will be leveraging the same methodology in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and the U.K.

Broadcasters should seek a legislative solution to Aereo rather then suing the streaming TV service, analysts BTIG said in a blog post Monday (http://bit.ly/1rZwOXO). Broadcasters should update “woefully outdated” copyright and retransmission consent laws instead of suing Aereo, BTIG said. Rewriting the Communications Act or the Cable Act is risky, because “so much of the law is outdated, that the risk of the unknown could be greater than the risks posed by current laws,” BTIG said. Since those rules were written, “distribution methods have progressed beyond where Congress could have imagined,” BTIG said. “A legal Aereo should serve as a wake-up call to the government to update a wide array of outdated media legislation, which has also led to a severe imbalance of retransmission consent leverage."

Comments in an FCC proceeding on a multilingual emergency alert system plan are due April 28. Replies are due May 12, the commission said in a Federal Register notice (http://1.usa.gov/1jgkIFU). The Public Safety Bureau issued a public notice seeking comment on the “designated hitter” plan this month (CD March 13 p 10).

An episode of Fox drama The Following was incorrectly rated as appropriate for children, said the Parents Television Council in a news release Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1gYvyek). The episode included a scene of “a young woman having her throat brutally and graphically slit open,” but had a TV-14 rating instead of “a more appropriate TV-MA (Mature Audience Only) rating,” PTC said. “This is just the latest -- but perhaps the most brazen -- example of a wholly fraudulent TV content ratings system that serves no one but the networks’ own financial interest,” said PTC President Tim Winter in the release. The Parental Guidelines Monitoring Board should reform the ratings system, PTC said. “If the TV content ratings system is to be of any value to those whom it is intended to serve -- parents -- then the ratings must be accurate, consistent, transparent and publicly accountable."

A compromise plan for making joint sales agreements attributable put forth by NAB is just a “restatement” of current JSA and local marketing agreement rules, Free Press told FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn in a letter Monday (http://bit.ly/1mvlKk4). The NAB proposed letting JSAs remain unattributed if they can demonstrate majority control over the involved station by the licensee and a public interest benefit. “NAB’s proposal seeks to change nothing,” Free Press said. “JSA participants would be exempt from attribution if they continue to operate under their JSAs exactly as they are currently operating and if they do one thing as simple as air the weather, show that one of the stations multicasts, or do not let the station fall into disrepair by spending routine capital,” Free Press said. “Thus, 100% of today’s JSAs would be granted an exemption.” In a meeting with Chairman Tom Wheeler Friday (http://bit.ly/1j4Ux4P), NAB President Gordon Smith said the NAB proposal’s goal was “not simply to codify current FCC practices” but to allow broadcasters to show that they retained “de facto control” of their station and that JSAs are in the public interest. That point was also echoed in an NAB meeting with Clyburn’s staff, according to an ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/1iBgmYT). A planned waiver process to allow deserving arrangements to remain unattributed is not sufficient, NAB said. “Waivers are inherently uncertain and likely to create obstacles to the investment needed to purchase or run a television station,” NAB said. “Particularly with no timeframe for action, a waiver process would not serve the public interest."

An FCC draft order that would make TV joint sales agreements attributable has cost the U.S. broadcast-TV industry “many millions of dollars of investment” and will lead to job losses, NAB President Gordon Smith told FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in a letter Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1dt9duI) that referenced a Friday meeting between the two. “I have no doubt that you didn’t intend curtailed investment and fewer American jobs to be the practical effect of the proposed rules,” Smith said. He focused on the draft order’s effect on existing joint service agreements, which the order would require to be unwound within two years. Businesses should be able to trust FCC decisions on deals that the agency has already approved, Smith said. “Why would anyone invest in a regulated entity if they knew that the rules could change mid-stream and new rules would be applied retroactively?” Instead, the FCC should take up an NAB-suggested plan for JSAs that would apply stricter standards to the degree of sharing allowed in such agreements (CD March 21 p1), and attribute only those that didn’t meet those standards, Smith said. “This way forward will give investors confidence that the commission will not be a 1970s style heavy handed regulator, but one that responds to market forces and seeks to encourage broadcasters."

Questions posed in an FCC public notice proposing rules for a multilingual emergency alert system (EAS) plan “reflect an interest in kicking the tires and looking under the hood,” a broadcast attorney said. The notice involves a designated-hitter backup plan to help non-English language stations knocked off the air during emergencies transmit EAS messages (CD March 13 p10). Broadcasters have expressed concern that such a requirement “would force them to hire folks fluent in one or more foreign languages,” wrote the industry lawyer, Fletcher Heald’s Harry Cole, on the law firm’s blog Thursday (http://bit.ly/1r5RRHP). It’s surprising that the FCC might be interested in such an unorthodox approach, Cole said. When was the last time “that the FCC suggested that a licensee might want to leave the keys to the station under the welcome mat ... so that some non-station announcers can take over for a while?” he asked. Refreshing the record “wouldn’t be necessary if the commission had, at some point in the last decade, taken action,” he added. The Minority Media and Telecommunications Council and other groups made the designated-hitter proposal in 2005.

USTelecom urged the FCC to address the significant problems that occur when multichannel video programming distributors “are required to negotiate retransmission consent rights for multiple local stations as a single package,” it said in an ex parte filing in docket 10-71 (http://bit.ly/1kQvpyL). USTelecom supports further inquiries on how to address current imbalances in the retransmission consent process, “and move instead to true and free negotiations between broadcasters and MVPDs,” it said. The filing pertains to a meeting with staff from FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai’s office.