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.

Sinclair will restructure its $985 million deal to buy Allbritton Communications’ TV stations to comply with guidelines for transactions involving sharing arrangements issued by the FCC last week (CD March 14 p9), the broadcaster said Thursday in a news release (http://bit.ly/1l8brCj ). “If the proposed restructuring is approved, Sinclair will sell certain stations it currently owns to parties other than the parties who were originally contemplated to buy these stations, and following the sale will not provide any services to such stations.” Sinclair is concerned the Media Bureau’s process for review of applications “would result in undue further delays to processing of the Applications and may result in the parties being unable to consummate the proposed transactions,” it said. Sinclair said it would sell WHP-TV, the CBS affiliate in Harrisburg, Pa., WMMP, the MyNetwork affiliate in Charleston, S.C., and WABM, the MyNetwork affiliate in Birmingham, Ala., if the restructuring is approved. Sinclair would also stop providing services to Fox affiliate WTAT Charleston and transfer the rights to provide services to WLYH Harrisburg to the buyer of WHP. “The proposed changes to the transaction will have an immaterial impact on Sinclair as a whole and on the Allbritton transaction in particular,” said CEO David Smith. “These markets were always a very small part of the Allbritton acquisition.” The stations to be sold were expected to contribute only about $21 million of earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation in 2014, and their sale will reduce the $21.5 million of “operating synergies” created in the Allbritton transaction by $2 million, Sinclair said.

Sinclair’s board approved a buyback of as much as $150 million of the broadcaster’s stock, after an existing authorization with $47 million remaining is used, said the company in a news release Thursday (http://bit.ly/1pfpzae). The stock fell 9.1 percent Monday, when an analyst downgraded the sector on worries that TV station deals will be harder if the FCC approves at its March 31 meeting an order requiring some station sharing agreements be attributed for ownership quotas. (See separate report above in this issue.) Thursday, Sinclair closed up 3.8 percent to $27.03.

AM radio will thrive in the future if all AM stations transition to iBiquity digital transmission within the next five to 10 years, Mount Wilson FM Broadcasters said in reply comments in docket 13-249 (http://bit.ly/1gbvCgc). Since filing initial comments in January, Mount Wilson completed the transition of its KMZT(AM) Beverly Hills, Calif., to digital hybrid facilities, it said. The signal quality on 1260 kHz is almost as good as the quality of material that is simulcast on Mount Wilson’s KKGO(FM) Los Angeles, it said.

NAB said the Justice Department wants the FCC to narrowly focus on antitrust laws over the public interest in attributing TV station joint sales agreements (JSAs), benefiting large advertisers and cable companies amid increasing online-ad competition. The association’s ex parte filing Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1hxxXPr), to be posted in docket 09-182 (http://bit.ly/1l1diZy), responded to Justice last month (CD Feb 24 p7) seeking ownership attribution. The FCC is tentatively set to vote March 31 on an order that would attribute the pacts when 15 percent or more of ad revenue is brokered by another separately owned station in the same market (CD March 18 p1). Justice is “overtly aware that its advice is in tension with core Commission policies and responsibilities,” wrote NAB. The department “relies on generalizations about the structure of JSAs, not actual evidence of consumer harm,” said the association. “If the Department acknowledged that broadcast television stations face a host of non-broadcast competitors (as they plainly do), it would dismantle the Department’s rationale for its proposed rule change.” NAB cited “stepped-up use of ‘interconnects'” by cable, DBS and telco-TV companies jointly selling commercials, and “substantial competition” to TV stations from online ads that “have reduced broadcasters’ revenues as advertisers allocate more of their budgets to locally targeted digital, mobile and social media” ads. Justice had no comment.

The ABC Television Network Affiliate Board of Governors endorsed an agreement for ABC’s NewsOne news service. The agreement covers the use of news content on both the primary broadcast platform, “as well as multiple other distribution methods,” ABC said in a news release Tuesday. It’s an attempt to capture current uses of news content and anticipate future uses of video, “with reciprocity as a guiding principle,” it said. The agreement also preserves the NewsOne model and provides limits on content distribution, while still expanding rights to digital and social media platforms, ABC said.

Harris Broadcast is now Imagine Communications and GatesAir. Imagine, a media software company, will be headquartered in Dallas, and radio and TV transmission company GatesAir will be based in Cincinnati, Imagine said in a press release (http://bit.ly/PJnAk0). By optimizing the highest quality video stream for delivery over the variety of bandwidth that users consume, Imagine’s TV Everywhere solutions “will enable all networks to dynamically adapt to the amount of available bandwidth,” it said. GatesAir is prepared to “guide broadcasters in effectively navigating major technology evolutions,” like digital conversion and the upcoming spectrum auctions, Imagine said.

The FCC has failed to study what impact proposed changes to joint sales agreement ownership attribution rules will have on localism and diversity, NAB President Gordon Smith and Executive Vice President Rick Kaplan told Commissioner Mignon Clyburn in a meeting Wednesday, according to an ex parte filing (http://tinyurl.com/nohv7e8). The draft order on circulation “makes sweeping generalizations and is thus arbitrary and capricious in its determination that all JSAs harm diversity and localism,” NAB said. “In contrast, the record is replete with examples of JSAs and other service agreements among stations that demonstrate that they, in fact, greatly foster localism and diversity.” The draft order is a “sledgehammer where a scalpel, if anything, is far more appropriate,” NAB said, saying the commission should address sharing arrangements on a case by case basis or with rules punishing behaviors prohibited by the Communications Act. “It is manifestly unfair for the Commission to prohibit broadcasters from engaging in joint advertising or retransmission consent negotiations when, at the same time, it permits the cable industry to do so,” NAB said. “If the Commission is serious about promoting localism and diversity, it should work with the broadcasting industry to find the most effective ways to do so.” NAB General Counsel Jane Mago and Ric Gorman of Gocom Media also met with Clyburn, along with Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Mike O'Rielly, Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake, Chairman Tom Wheeler’s aide Maria Kirby and commission staff on the subject of JSAs, another ex parte filing said (http://tinyurl.com/pr3u3me). Gorman’s NBC affiliate station, KNVN Chico, Calif., would not be able to offer local news without it’s sharing arrangements with a nearby CBS affiliate, Gorman said. “The proposal to make JSAs attributable would have the unintended consequence of creating serious harm to his company and the service he provides in the Chico market,” the NAB filing said. A proposal in the draft order to allow sharing arrangements in the public interest to receive a waiver for the new attribution rules is “not a viable solution,” NAB said. “Such a waiver plan would place the burden of proof on precisely the wrong parties -- the ‘good operators’ that are promoting localism, diversity and competition,” NAB said. Instead, the FCC should set clear standards for transactions involving JSAs that require licensees to retain control over 85 percent of programming, retain at least 70 percent of revenues from ad sales and maintain at least 20 percent of station value in the license itself, said NAB: “The Commission should clearly describe standards for joint arrangements and prohibit only those operations that do not meet those standards.”

The FCC Media Bureau identified six pending TV translator and low-power TV applications that aren’t mutually exclusive with other applications. Petitions to deny the applications may be filed within 30 days of Friday’s release of the public notice, the bureau said(http://bit.ly/1fY24mg). The applicants identified include Miriam Media of Ashburn, Va., Venture Technologies Group of Los Angeles and Sinclair-owned WLUC-TV Marquette, Mich., it said.

Tougaloo College’s TV station WLOO Vicksburg, Miss., is not operated by Raycom, said WLOO in an ex parte response (http://tinyurl.com/nm3359r) to a National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters letter (CD March 13 p21). Owned and operated by an historically black college, WLOO said it was “disappointed that NABOB, an organization dedicated to promoting minority station ownership, based its critique of WLOO’s operations on unreliable resources such as Wikipedia,” the letter said. WLOO was highlighted last week in a news release from FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai holding the station up as an example of the useful effects of joint sales agreements (JSAs), which the commission is considering limiting. The NABOB letter challenged the beneficial nature of WLOO’s sharing arrangements, and used information from Raycom’s website as evidence the station was largely being operated by Raycom. That information is incorrect, WLOO said. “WLOO’s relationship to Raycom Media is limited to rental of transmitter space on a tower owned by Raycom,” said WLOO, also outlining plans to eventually relocate the transmitter away from the Raycom tower. WLOO “competes with all of the other stations in the market” and “it sets its own course with respect to all of its operational, programming, and financial decisions,” the filing said. WLOO also took issue with a NABOB proposal for using JSAs to increase minority broadcast ownership by encouraging stations involved in JSAs to transfer control of the sidecar station to a minority owner. Such a system would “jeopardize WLOO’s public service and growth as a minority-owned station,” the filing said. “WLOO anticipates that it will someday be able to hire its own sales staff, but the imposition of an artificial deadline and burdensome reporting requirements would be problematic,” the filing said. NABOB didn’t comment.