Matt Daneman

With its NBC affiliation agreement now expired, WHDH Boston dropped its appeal in its NBC affiliation fight with Comcast. In a motion (in Pacer) for voluntary dismissal filed Wednesday in the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, WHDH said since its June appeal "the parties' respective circumstances have changed," leading to WHDH's dropping its appeal. The station's appeal brief had been due Friday. Michael Gass of Choate Hall, representing the station, told us that with it not getting injunctive relief to prevent the expiration of WHDH's NBC affiliation agreement, which expired Sunday, "it's hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube." Station management instead decided to continue focusing on running the station as an independent with local news and syndicated programming like WHDH owner Sunbeam previously did with its WSVN Miami, Gass said: "There's no reason to think they can't do that here." WHDH sued Comcast last year over plans to move its NBC affiliation to a Comcast-owned station (see 1603110031).

Cable and broadcast interests -- at odds in multiple retransmission consent talks breakdowns around the country -- are also at odds over the significance of those failed talks. The American TV Alliance (ATVA) pointed Tuesday to carriage disruptions in 48 markets nationally, calling it "a tidal wave of television blackouts." But Scott Flick of Pillsbury, who represents a number of broadcast stations, said: “In the grand scheme of things, [2016 was] probably one of the smoothest years” for retrans talks, and the fact so many deals expire at year’s end leads to a disproportionate bubble of talks that come to loggerheads. Separately, retrans may be one reason why Nexstar hasn't gotten the FCC OK to buy Media General for about $4.6 billion (see 1701030054).

Whether the Supreme Court opts next month to take up an appeal of a 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in a Nickelodeon video privacy case could hinge on whether the 3rd and 1st U.S. Circuit are split on what constitutes personally identifiable information (PII) as laid out by the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA). The case, C.A.F v. Viacom, was distributed for a conference to be held Jan. 6, according to the Supreme Court docket.

The Fixed Wireless Communications Coalition expects, and the satellite industry agrees, the satellite community will launch numerous objections to and arguments against an FWCC petition asking for changes in earth station licensing rules (see 1610180035). The FWCC sees the petition as more evenhanded and flexible than what the group proposed in its 1999 push for conditions on fixed satellite service (FSS) earth stations, an FWCC lawyer said, but satellite interests see it as deja vu.

Donald Trump's incoming administration has become a key subject in fundraising and mobilization efforts by multiple telco advocacy groups in recent weeks. The amount of messaging that's overtly political is higher than ever, some experts tell us. "Telecom has always been a political process; when you're talking about subsidies of billions of dollars, let's not kid ourselves here," said Phoenix Center President Lawrence Spiwak. "But it wasn't what you see now at all."

Consideration of Boeing's V-band satellite constellation plans could involve which companies -- satellite operators or terrestrial wireless -- are well-suited to serve the rural market. CTIA, T-Mobile and Straight Path Communications, in final replies Monday to Boeing's application for its non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) mega constellation, disputed which technology is best for serving rural subscribers. Boeing's application also triggered a processing round with a March 1 deadline for applications and petitions for declaratory ruling on similar NGSO satellite operations in the same frequency bands.

As WHDH Boston fights Comcast-NBCUniversal over the network's move of NBC affiliation to an owned-and-operated station (see 1603110031), broadcast industry experts tell us more such affiliation shifts could be coming if and when there's a successful conclusion to the broadcast incentive auction. Meanwhile, many say the political pressure that was put on Comcast in the fight likely had scant effect.

The July spectrum frontiers order opening high-frequency bands to 5G needs to go back to the drawing board, said the satellite industry and multiple individual satellite operators in a series of reconsideration petitions in docket 14-177. Multiple filers pushed in particular for the FCC to give fixed satellite service (FSS) downlink spectrum in the 42 GHz band and for less stringent rules on locating earth stations. Also last week, wireless interests had sought changes to the order (see 1612150067).

Increased spectrum congestion eventually will necessitate more enforcement work for 5G, including possibly addressing receiver performance characteristics, said some panelists at a Hudson Institute-hosted panel Friday. A first step must be technical rules for what constitutes unauthorized harmful interference and defining the line at which such harm justifies enforcement action, NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling said. As services increasingly bump against one another, regulators at some point must confront whether receivers play a role in spillover, he said.

Possible rules dealing with interference between broadcast satellite service (BSS) earth stations and direct broadcast satellite transmissions are on circulation on the eighth floor. The FCC Friday began circulating BSS Rules in the 17.3-17.8 GHz band. An FCC official said the proposed rules -- the result of the agency's soliciting comments last year on potential ground-path interference rules for 17/24 GHz reverse band BSS operations (see 1510260018) -- would grandfather in older earth stations but require coordination between future deployments of feeder links and BSS earth stations.