Two groups’ challenge to an FCC decision paving the way for Tribune’s privatization in 2007 by real-estate investor Sam Zell was mostly dismissed by the agency, acting Thursday after a draft circulated in late 2012. Commissioners approved an order saying the Media Alliance (MA) and United Church of Christ (UCC) had standing to challenge in additional markets the deal, which preceded the newspaper, TV and radio station owner’s bankruptcy. But the agency, also as expected (CD Nov 26/12 p1), left the rest of the order in place. That the two groups “had standing to contest Tribune’s waiver requests does not, however, alter any other decisions” made in the order “because the Commission considered and addressed all of UCC/MA’s substantive arguments there,” said the order on reconsideration (http://fcc.us/MlYgyp). “The Commission did this by treating UCC/MA as an informal objector to the extent they had not demonstrated standing.” A newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership waiver and license renewals for Tribune were left in place. A lawyer for UCC had no immediate comment.

Shared services agreements and other such arrangements lead to the shuttering of local newsrooms, less competition in the local TV marketplace, and less diversity of viewpoint and ownership on the public airwaves, Free Press said in an ex parte filing in dockets 09-182, 10-71 and 13-189 (http://bit.ly/1cA77H1). The filing recounted a phone conversation with Adonis Hoffman, chief of staff to FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn.

LIN Digital Media agreed to buy digital content marketing company Federated Media, said LIN Digital, a subsidiary of TV-station owner LIN Media, in a news release Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1cvav5W). Federated Media specializes in helping brands build relationships with “high influence bloggers that produce original content on a daily basis for a wide variety of vertical categories,” said LIN Digital. It said Federated has a reach of “over 33 million unique visitors per month” and lets LIN Media extend its “premium video and social platform offerings” and offer clients “more robust native ad solutions."

Local TV news audiences grew in all three time slots in 2013, reversing a trend of declining local news viewership since 2008, said the Pew Research Center in a blog post circulated by NAB Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1hJ6pah). Audiences for morning newscasts climbed 6 percent, while early evening news shows received a 3 percent jump and late night news broadcasts a 1 percent increase for the year, said Pew. Late night news has “suffered the biggest decreases in recent years,” said Pew. In 2012, late night and evening news audiences each dropped by 7 percent from the prior year, while the morning audience decreased by 5 percent. The increases may be traceable to an uptick of viewing during the November sweeps period, when there were a “number of major news events,” Pew said, such as in November, around the time when the Affordable Care Act’s flawed websites started, and there were several large weather events in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and the Midwest. The February manhunt for former Los Angeles police officer Christopher Dorner also “generated big audiences in the nation’s second-biggest TV market,” Pew said. “While it is impossible to know whether the 2013 numbers are a harbinger of a new spurt of audience growth, they coincide with a wave of consolidation that has seen bullish media companies -- from Gannett to Tribune -- buy up large groups of stations.” Despite the 2013 numbers, the overall picture shows local news on the decline, Pew said. “Even including 2013, the morning newscasts -- the most consistent viewership performer in local news -- has lost 3 percent of its audience since 2007,” said Pew. Since 2007, early evening news has lost 12 percent of viewership, and late-night newscasts have lost 17 percent, Pew said. But local TV is still “a top news source for Americans,” Pew said. Three out of four U.S. adults watch local TV news over the course of a month, while 65 percent watch network newscasts and 38 percent watch cable news, Pew said.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting urged the FCC to eliminate the creation of white spaces, protect translators of noncommercial educational stations and prioritize repacking funds for NCE licensees as it moves toward finalizing the spectrum incentive auction process. Many public television translators are of primary importance to their communities, CPB said in an ex parte filing in docket 12-268 (http://bit.ly/1e4Xp0S). The filing is a letter to Chairman Tom Wheeler. The FCC should recognize the essential need for public TV translators and “to mitigate risk to noncommercial translators by adopting measures in advance that will preserve their service,” it said. CPB cautioned that “a reimbursement shortfall will be damaging to public television stations.” The commission should work with Congress to ensure that adequate reimbursement funds are available under any spectrum recovery approach the FCC takes, “as well as to change the current statutory bar on using auction proceeds designated for repacking to fund translator relocation,” it said.

The FCC Media and Wireless bureaus identified the locations, frequencies and minimum opening bids for 22 new commercial AM stations up for auction (http://bit.ly/Lkvs9i). Auction 84 will take place May 6 (CD Nov 19 p20). All applicants within each mutually exclusive group are directly mutually exclusive (MX) with one another, the bureaus said in a public notice (http://bit.ly/1e4HYWq). “No more than one construction permit will be awarded for each MX group identified.” The commission’s rules don’t prohibit applicants from signing otherwise lawful bidding agreements before filing their short-form applications, “as long as they disclose the existence of the agreement(s) in their short-form applications,” said the notice. The commission delegated to the bureaus the authority and discretion to determine appropriate upfront payments for each auction, which are due before 6 p.m. April 7, it said. The payments “help defer frivolous or insincere bidding, and provide the commission with a source of funds in the event that the bidder incurs liability during the auction,” it said. The public notice provided information on auction stopping rules, registration and other procedures.

The FCC should take the idea of making changes to the software that will be used in the post-incentive auction repacking “off the table,” said NAB in an ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/1n8ns9Q). “Changing stations’ coverage areas during the auction process is antithetical to the stated purposes of the” Spectrum Act, said NAB. To coordinate the repacking, the FCC should create “an expert group of outside stakeholders” to test the software when it’s finished. “This proactive engagement will allow the FCC to have the confidence that its software is ready for prime time and will tap into the resources of various industries that are committed to seeing a successful auction,” said NAB. The repacking solution also needs to take the borders with Canada and Mexico into consideration, NAB said. Without new agreements with those countries, it will be “nearly impossible” for the FCC to reclaim enough spectrum “within 250 miles of the Canadian border and 150 miles of the Mexican border” because of interference issues, NAB said. It also urged the commission to appoint an “independent, third-party administrator” to oversee the process of reimbursing broadcasters for costs from the repacking. The TV Broadcaster Relocation Fund should be treated as a budget for the repacking, NAB said. “It is nonsensical to suggest that Congress only sought to cover some unstated portion of non-participating broadcaster costs as opposed to making them whole,” said NAB. The FCC should also process channel substitution applications submitted before the freeze on such applications, protect stations’ translators in the auction, and make its “latest thinking” on the incentive auction band plan available for public comment, NAB said. The FCC should also create a solution that provides adequate spectrum for wireless microphone operation, NAB said. The association is exploring the possibility of giving wireless microphones access to the duplex gap, and examining “the viability of LTE/wireless microphone coexistence in the upper 600 MHz band,” the ex parte said.

This weekend’s Super Bowl will be watched by about 181 million viewers -- 75.4 percent of U.S. adults -- and 7.2 percent of those consumers are expected to buy a new TV to watch the game, the National Retail Federation estimated Monday. Those 181 million viewers will spend an average of $68.27 on TVs, game day food, athletic wear and decorations, NRF said, citing the findings of a Super Bowl Spending survey done for it by Prosper Insights and Analytics. That’s about flat with last year’s $68.54, said NRF. Total spending is expected to pass $12.3 billion. The spending survey included a poll of 6,417 consumers Jan. 2-13, and had a margin of error of plus or minus 1.2 percentage points, said NRF.

Initial comments in the FCC Media Bureau proceeding on eliminating the sports blackout rule are due Feb. 24, and replies March 25, the commission said in a Federal Register notice (http://1.usa.gov/1fcpLoK). The bureau released the NPRM last month (CD Dec 19 p8).

The Association of Public Television Stations stressed the importance of the FCC conducting feasibility and optimization processes to determine the best repacking scenarios during the broadcast incentive auction. This would allow the commission “to consider plans developed by broadcasters on a state-wide or market-wide basis,” APTS said in an ex parte filing in docket 12-268 (http://bit.ly/1eYbhqj). The FCC should “give deference to these state and market plans developed by all impacted broadcasters,” it said. APTS reaffirmed the importance of advance funding and priority given to public broadcasters and the importance of translators during repacking, it said: “We believe that fill-in translators should be accommodated as they are key to maintaining the current coverage of stations.” APTS met with Chairman Tom Wheeler, Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake and other FCC staff, it said.