Five broadcasters filed for 21 new FM boosters to use for geotargeted radio, said GeoBroadcast Solutions in reply comments filed Monday (docket 20-401). GBS didn’t name the broadcasters but said the boosters are in geographically diverse markets, including Seattle; Jackson, Mississippi; and Fort Duchesne, Utah. “Our understanding is that more broadcasters will file soon,” GBS said. It told the FCC that interference safeguards for content-originating boosters that NAB and REC Networks proposed are “unnecessary or attempt to reopen technical issues already resolved in the Report and Order.” GBS also said the FCC doesn’t need to require geotargeted radio broadcasters to provide special notifications to the Federal Emergency Management Agency or other emergency alert participants. FCC rules requiring reporting to the emergency test reporting and state emergency alert systems already make that information available to FEMA and other EAS participants, GBS said. REC Networks said it remained skeptical about geotargeted radio technology and warned that it will hurt the radio industry. Content-originating FM boosters are “merely a way for GBS to take advantage of small minority broadcasters through their ‘zero up front’ method of financing the project” taking “minority station revenues off the top,” REC said. “Our bigger concern is to address the fact that FM Boosters provide absolutely no co-channel protection to incumbent facilities.” Minority-owned Roberts Radio told the FCC that the technology will create revenue for similar companies, but said the agency should eliminate EAS equipment requirements for FM boosters and allow more geotargeted content per hour. Increasing the three-minute-limit per hour to six would “double the effect of this opportunity, and still represent less than half the advertising time available on most commercial FM stations,” Roberts said. FM boosters used in geotargeted radio don’t need their own EAS equipment because they can repeat the signal from their main station, Roberts said. “Requiring program originating booster operators to install EAS equipment will impose significant and wholly unnecessary financial and technical burdens on the broadcasters that employ them.”

The FCC Media Bureau reaffirmed its dismissal of a petition from Alabama's Athens State University for a construction permit for a new low-power FM station. In a letter Thursday, the bureau said its staff correctly dismissed the application for not meeting co-channel and first-adjacent channel spacing requirements. It also rejected ASU's request for a waiver based on typographical errors in the application. "We agree that providing new locally-originated service is a laudable goal, however, the loss of LPFM service to Athens, unfortunately, was caused by Petitioner’s mistake, not by an erroneous or harsh Bureau approach to its Application," the bureau said.

The FCC Media Bureau admonished Legacy Broadcasting's KMLU Columbia, Louisiana, for failing to include nondiscriminatory language in its advertising sales agreements. In a letter to Legacy dated Wednesday, the bureau said there's no evidence the station or the Greenwood, Mississippi, licensee engaged in discriminatory behavior in ad sales, so the lack of nondiscrimination clauses doesn't warrant a fine. However, failure to include such language in future ad agreements could result in fines, it added.

The FCC must recognize that public TV stations are separate and distinct from commercial stations, and the proposed definitions of locally originated content in the agency's local content application processing prioritization proceeding should reflect that, America's Public TV Stations said in a docket 24-14 filing Tuesday. Recapping a meeting with Commissioner Brendan Carr's office, APTS warned that the definitions in the NPRM don't align with the local programming of public TV stations. It said those definitions could have implications in future rulemakings for what's considered local broadcast programming.

The FCC commissioners split along party lines on the foreign-sponsored content order, with Commissioner Nathan Simington dissenting and Commissioner Brendan Carr dissenting in part. Approved last month, the order (docket 20-299) was released Monday. It's in response to a July 2022 U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruling against the agency regarding its foreign-sponsored content rules (see 2207120069). The order replaces a requirement that broadcasters check federal databases for each entity leasing time on their stations to see if they are registered foreign agents. Instead, broadcasters have two options for showing that they tried to determine if the programming is foreign-government sponsored. The order also clarifies that the FCC's foreign-sponsorship rules don't apply generally to ad sales for commercial goods and services. Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel in a statement said the rules clarification makes clear that if a foreign government pays to broadcast programming or campaign advertising, a disclosure would clarify that the government paid for it. The clarification "is about supporting transparency and democratic values," she said. "As listeners, viewers, and citizens, this is something we are entitled to know." Carr and Simington objected to new definitions in the order. "While this Order fixes one legal infirmity highlighted at the D.C. Circuit, it creates new problems that may require us to revisit our foreign sponsorship rules in a future proceeding following another appeal," Carr said. Simington said the order's new definitions of "lease of airtime" and "short-form advertising" go against past definitions and violate the Administrative Procedure Act. He said the FCC rule also covers the same ground as Federal Elections Commission rules prohibiting foreign sponsorship.

NAB filed a petition for partial reconsideration of the FCC’s equal employment opportunity data collection order and Catholic broadcasters refiled and expanded their existing petition (see 2405010070), according to filings in docket 98-204 this week. The EEO order also was challenged in court (see 2405060057). NAB’s petition calls for the agency to reconsider making the broadcaster workforce diversity data publicly available and station specific and to reconsider changes to Form 395-B to allow for reporting of nonbinary genders. Making the data public violates the First and Fifth amendments and could threaten employee privacy, NAB said. “Given the Commission’s new categorization concerning non-binary employees, a number of broadcasters also have expressed concern on behalf of their employees who would be identified as such that they could be harassed,” NAB said. The FCC’s position that Congress requires it to regulate broadcaster EEO is wrong, and disclosing the data “will deliberately unleash pressure on stations to engage in preferential hiring practices,” NAB said. “The FCC effectively invites third-party activist groups to use the data for such inappropriate purposes.” The joint filing from Catholic broadcasters and groups including the Catholic Radio Association and the Sanctus Josephus Society has added another broadcaster to the 19 previously included in the petition. Jackson Lansing Catholic Radio has joined Archangel Communications, Holy Family Communications and others in calling on the FCC to reconsider the recognition of nonbinary gender in Form 395-B. The new filing also expands the Catholic broadcasters' First Amendment arguments. Speaking on a podcast Wednesday, an attorney representing one of the organizations pursuing a legal challenge to the EEO order condemned it as an attempt to control broadcasters and collect employee personal information. “They want to use this regulation to force organizations to use hiring practices for people of the LGBTQ persuasion that they prefer,” said Abraham Hamilton, general counsel of the American Family Association. Hamilton compared the public listing of the EEO data to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s listing of hate groups and said the FCC wants to force broadcasters to “capitulate” to “the Biden administration’s obsession with the LGBTQIAP+ sexual deviancy sociopolitical agenda.”

NAB confirmed Monday that its Leadership Foundation won’t award actor Robert De Niro the Service to America Leadership Award Tuesday. De Niro gave a speech condemning former President Donald Trump during a campaign event for President Joe Biden last week, which drew much negative media coverage. The Celebration of Service to America Awards is dedicated to honoring ‘vital local journalism and public service” and is “proudly bipartisan,” an NAB spokesperson said. “While we strongly support the right of every American to exercise free speech and participate in civic engagement, it is clear that Mr. De Niro’s recent high-profile activities will create a distraction from the philanthropic work that we were hoping to recognize,” NAB said. “To maintain the focus on service of the award winners, Mr. De Niro will no longer be attending the event.” The foundation announced that De Niro would receive the award for his philanthropic work in a May 28 news release.

The FCC should treat public TV stations differently from commercial stations in its locally originated content proceeding (see 2403120071), America’s Public Television Stations and PBS said during a call with an aide to Commissioner Geoffrey Starks Thursday, according to an ex parte filing in docket 24-14. The proposal prioritizing applications from broadcasters that originate local content “should not shift the long-standing understanding of localism as ‘issue-responsive’ programming,” the filing said. The NPRM proposes defining locally originated content as created within or very close to a station’s market, and that would exclude much public TV content, the filing said. The proposed definitions “do not align with the inherently local, community-responsive programming of public television stations, especially the programming of state and regional networks and local stations that engage in station collaborations,” the filing said. “Public television stations, which are locally owned and locally operated, are inherently local.” The FCC’s local content proceeding could have implications for what content is considered local in future proceedings, PBS and APTS said.

Radio broadcaster Salem Media apologized for releasing a film and book questioning the 2020 election results and removed both from all its platforms, Salem said in a news release Friday. The book and film are called 2000 Mules. They're the work of conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza and the organization True the Vote. In the release, Salem said it relied on representations from D’Souza and TTV that a Georgia private citizen named Mark Andrews illegally deposited ballots during the election. “We have learned that the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has cleared Mr. Andrews of illegal voting activity in connection with the event depicted in 2000 Mules,” said the release. “We apologize for the hurt the inclusion of Mr. Andrews’ image in the movie, book, and promotional materials have caused Mr. Andrews and his family.”

The Copyright Office (CO) last week gathered feedback from broadcasters, streamers and songwriters on the potential redesignation of the entity that administers digital streaming royalties under the Music Modernization Act (MMA) (see 2208150042). President Donald Trump signed the MMA into law in October 2018, establishing the mechanical licensing collective (MLC). The MMA -- a years-long negotiation and legislative compromise among music industry, broadcast and streaming entities -- modernized the royalty payment system for the digital era. The MMA requires the CO to review the MLC’s designation every five years. The first review began in January, and reply comments are due June 28. The MIC Coalition, which includes NAB, CTA, the Computer & Communications Industry Association and the Digital Media Association, didn’t take a position on the MLC’s redesignation. But the coalition recommended the CO require the MLC to incorporate performance rights organization data into the musical works database to help members more efficiently handle payments. The MLC’s current database lacks comprehensive information for all four performing rights organizations, they said. The National Music Publishers’ Association and Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI), organizations that hold MLC board seats, recommended renewal. NMPA said it opposes proposals that "erode the proper functioning or funding of the MLC as explicitly laid out in the statutory text.” The MLC has “succeeded in fulfilling all of its obligations with the lowest operating budget of any known license administration collective in the music publishing industry,” said NMPA. The MLC’s operating costs, as a percentage of royalties it processes, was 3% in 2023, it said. Collective management and performing rights organizations typically take a 10%-20% commission, NMPA said. NSAI acknowledged there are areas for improvement but said the MLC has “exceeded everyone’s expectations in its first four years of operation. It is efficiently and effectively licensing, collecting and distributing royalties in a way our industry has not seen before.” Songwriters of North America said the existing MLC should be renewed, but the organization needs to address issues with the transfer and accuracy of the database.