An FCC waiver for a broadcaster that won the last two...

An FCC waiver for a broadcaster that won the last two TV stations auctioned to change the community of license within Delaware of the one outlet the company hasn’t built out, “would serve the public interest,” said a Media Bureau rulemaking notice Wednesday. Waiving the agency’s freeze on such DTV channel changes wouldn’t require “additional technical changes,” said the notice seeking comment on Western Pacific Broadcast’s request to move WMDE from Seaford to Dover. Western Pacific also owns WACP Atlantic City, N.J., seeking guaranteed pay-TV system carriage in the Philadelphia area and, unlike WMDE, on air. An order (http://fcc.us/12AhUbb) also from the bureau’s Video Division denied the Broadcast Maximization Committee’s request to undo the 2010 allotment of Channel 5 in Delaware to Seaford. BMC wants that channel and channel 6 used for radio, not DTV. The section of the Communications Act the allotment was meant to address, that there be a commercial VHF station in every state, “poses a somewhat unique circumstance compared to other allocations,” said the order signed by Division Chief Barbara Kreisman. “To the extent that a proposed allocation of this sort is unusual, BMC does not identify any impropriety or legal barrier to the adoption of a new approach.” Western Pacific and PMCM, which unsuccessfully sought to move two western U.S. TV stations to Delaware and New Jersey so the commission would comport with that section of the act after the DTV transition, both are represented by the Fletcher Heald law firm. PMCM in December won a U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruling that reversed the agency’s denial of that cross-country community of license move (CD Dec 17 p4). BMC hasn’t decided whether to sue the FCC in an appeals court over the denial of its petition for reconsideration, said Mark Lipp of Wiley Rein, representing the council. Lawyers for PMCM and Western Pacific had no comment right away. Comments are due in 30 days after the rulemaking appears in the Federal Register, replies 15 days later, the notice said (http://fcc.us/X4rSkj).