Monty Tayloe

Apollo Global Management’s financing of Standard/Tegna, influence over the new company and the series of station transfers the $8.6 billion deal would create among Standard, Tegna and Apollo subsidiary Cox Media Group were targeted by MVPDs, public interest groups and fellow broadcaster Graham Media in petitions posted Thursday in docket 22-162. “Why would Applicants go through this many hoops?” asked MVPD Altice, saying one possibility “is that they seek to apply Cox retransmission consent rates to New TEGNA stations -- even though Cox isn’t buying TEGNA.” The applicants’ “attempt to exploit ‘after-acquisition’ clauses in retransmission consent contracts will inevitably result in increased MVPD subscription prices” for consumers, said a filing from two sectors of the Communications Workers of America.

Apollo Global Management and its subsidiary Cox Media Group’s noncontrolling shares in the company created by Standard’s $8.6 billion buy of Tegna wouldn’t give them influence over it or on retransmission consent negotiations, said a response from all four companies to the FCC Media Bureau, posted Tuesday. “The companies will continue to compete directly and vigorously in the handful of markets where both own stations,” said the response filing.

A draft NPRM on preserving FM6 stations -- low-power channel 6 TV stations receivable by FM radios and focused on audio content -- is expected to be unanimously approved with few changes at Wednesday’s commissioners’ meeting, FCC and industry officials told us. The owners of the stations -- sometimes called “Franken FMs” after the fictional Frankenstein's monster -- are optimistic about the FCC allowing them to continue broadcasting but concerned about proposals in the draft to make their licenses nontransferable or bar new entrants. FM6 stations serve underserved communities, said FM6 broadcaster Paul Koplin, CEO of Venture Technologies Group: “Wouldn’t it be in the public interest to let as many people do this as possible?”

NAB and tech groups are preparing for a battle over the FCC’s upcoming collection of regulatory fees, said attorneys and advocates in interviews. Since regulatory fees must be collected by the fall, attorneys expect the agency to soon issue public notices on the 2022 fee collection. The NPRM on the 2021 fee collection was released in May 2021. NAB has had annual disagreements with the agency’s fee assessments for the past several years (see 2008210053), but broadcast attorneys and tech advocates said they expect the group to press the issue this year. NAB Chief Legal Officer Rick Kaplan at the 2022 NAB Show in April said the item is now “at the top of the list.”

A 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling last week against the SEC could have implications for FCC enforcement actions and the powers of administrative law judges like the FCC’s ALJ Jane Halprin, but it is too early to be sure how the ruling against the SEC applies to other agencies, said academics and communications attorneys in interviews. Based on that Jarkesy v. SEC decision, U.S. Supreme Court rulings and a pair of cases currently before SCOTUS, the outlook for ALJs at federal agencies -- including the FCC -- “looks a little shaky,” said Jeffrey Lubbers, an administrative law professor at American University. “I’d be surprised if this decision is the final word,” said former FCC General Counsel Tom Johnson, now with Wiley.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser (D) doesn’t mind if a federal privacy law preempts the proposed Colorado Privacy Act as long as it's “as good as what we have” and gives state attorneys general the authority to protect consumers, he said Wednesday at the Mountain Connect Broadband Development Conference. Weiser also discussed digital literacy, broadband infrastructure and consumer protection, and blamed the need for individual state laws on a broken federal system.

A draft order that would allow FM broadcasters to use computer modeling to verify the pattern of their directional antennas is expected to be unanimously approved at Thursday’s open meeting, FCC and industry officials told us. The final version isn’t expected to be much changed from the draft order, and would allow antenna manufacturers to do the modeling and still require the construction of full-size or scale models the first time the pattern of a particular type of antenna is verified using a particular modeling software.

Broadcasters are looking for intervention by either the FCC or Congress to allow them to run ads for marijuana products in states where cannabis or medical marijuana have been legalized, said broadcast attorneys and industry officials in interviews. Because marijuana remains a federally controlled substance, broadcasters fear losing their FCC licenses for running the ads even where cannabis is legal, attorneys told us. State broadcast associations and NAB have been pushing for legislation on the issue, but NAB Executive Vice President-Government Relations Shawn Donilon said at an NAB 2022 panel in April that those could “prove elusive” in the current Congress. Donilon said then NAB could seek potential relief at the FCC in the meantime, but industry officials told us no such request is imminent. Agency clarification on the matter would likely be enough to satisfy broadcasters, said Fletcher Heald broadcast attorney Frank Montero.

Broadcasters are reducing their expectations for a resurgence in auto advertising revenue and are concerned about inflation but are seeing bigger numbers from travel and other categories that were diminished by COVID-19, said executives on recent Q1 earnings calls for Cumulus, Nexstar, Gray, and Sinclair. Nexstar CEO Perry Sook referenced supply chain concerns Tuesday but said “there are many bright spots” among broadcast ad categories. “Experiential-based businesses entertainment and travel are back in a big way,” said Sook, echoed on the other companies’ earnings calls.

The FCC should require licensees to collect and report diversity data from the companies that provide their media content, including on streaming services, said a petition Thursday from programmer Fuse Media and several public interest groups including the National Hispanic Media Coalition, Public Knowledge and Common Cause. The petition doesn’t limit the proposal to companies overseen by the Media Bureau, but loops in broadband licensees such as Google and Amazon. “Collecting data from all of the regulatee’s services will not only provide a fuller picture of the regulatee’s overall commitment to diversity but would allow the Commission to compare viewpoint diversity and competition across different services,” said the petition.