Allowing FM broadcasters to originate content from booster stations will benefit minority-owned stations, minority advertisers and minority audiences, media executives told FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and Media Bureau Chief Holly Sauer, per a docket 20-401 ex parte post Monday. They said Roberts Radio's WRBJ-FM Brandon, Mississippi, in geo-targeting tests held in Jackson, Mississippi, had improved coverage and Nielsen ratings, which enabled it to draw in new advertisers. The WRBJ testing also shows the booster tech can be designed to minimize interference between primary and geo-targeted booster signals while creating "miniscule" transition areas in low-populated or unpopulated areas of a broadcaster's footprint, the execs said. They said there's zero risk of cross-channel interference. Meeting with Rosenworcel were National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters CEO James Winston, National Newspaper Publishers Association CEO Benjamin Chavis, Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council CEO Robert Branson, Roberts Radio CEO Steve Roberts, JAM Media Solutions CEO Jonathan Mason and Kizart Media Partners Managing Director Sherman Kizart.
Country of origin cases
Alaska found holes in the broadband serviceable location fabric the FCC is using for upcoming maps for determining Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) funding, Alaska officials told us. Also, some states initially had problems accessing the fabric created by the FCC’s contractor CostQuest. GCI Communications initially raised the potential for gaps, telling the FCC the "potential consequences for Alaska are serious.”
The House Judiciary Committee is moving forward with plans to mark up the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, a source familiar with discussions told us Friday. That could mean potential movement in both chambers as the Senate Judiciary Committee eyes the first week of September for marking up S-673, after holding the bill last week (see 2208020063).
The National Association of Attorneys General backed the FTC's proposed amendments to the commission's telemarketing sales rule (see 2206020066). A five-year record-keeping requirement is "necessary to ensure that essential evidence remains available to law enforcement," the group, which included 39 attorneys general, said in comments posted Wednesday. The proposed amendments to call detail records "will greatly assist law enforcement in connecting illegal lead generation robocalls to the companies that profit from them," NAAG said. The FTC should require that sellers and telemarketers "include a campaign ID for each call" and "record the originating or gateway telecommunications provider for each campaign," said a coalition of consumer advocacy organizations, including the Electronic Privacy Information Center, National Consumer Law Center and Public Knowledge. The World Privacy Forum backed the proposed changes and asked the FTC to require that telemarketers "retain a record of whether or not voice biometrics ... were used on any calls." The group opposed the proposal to expand the consumer data telemarketers keep. Don't repeal the exemption for business-to-business telemarketing calls, said the Third Party Payment Processors Association: "We believe that removing this exemption will cause more harm than good by unduly burdening legitimate business activities of honest and responsible companies." Sirius XM said the proposed call record retention requirements "can reveal sensitive demographic or financial information and result in customer harm." It also asked the FTC to limit record retention requirements to three years to ensure the commission's access to records doesn't impose "unnecessary burdens on businesses." The proposed amendments "would not protect businesses from any conduct that is not already prohibited by law," said the Revenue Based Finance Coalition. It "lacks adequate justification for both the additional record keeping requirements, as well as the extended duration of retention," said the Ohio Credit Union League.
Bipartisan legislation that would ban Big Tech platforms from self-preferencing products won’t get to the Senate floor, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told us last week. Other Republicans voiced frustration in interviews over comments from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who reportedly told fundraiser attendees last week that the American Innovation and Choice Online Act (S-2992) doesn’t have the 10 Republican votes needed to clear the 60-vote threshold.
Qualcomm now expects global handset shipments in calendar 2022 to decline by “a mid-single-digit percentage” year over year, including 650 million to 700 million 5G handsets, said Chief Financial Officer Akash Palkhiwala on an earnings call Wednesday for fiscal Q3 ended June 26. Previous Qualcomm 5G smartphone forecasts pegged shipments to exceed 750 million handsets for calendar 2022.
The House passed chips legislation Thursday in a 243-187-1 vote, sending the long-awaited science and technology package to President Joe Biden’s desk (see 2207270061). Twenty-four Republicans voted in favor, and zero Democrats voted against.
Senate backers of the Chips and Science Act package of U.S. semiconductor incentives and tech competitiveness initiatives and House leaders voiced strong optimism Wednesday that the measure will make it through Congress before the lower chamber recesses Friday for the six-week August break.
The FCC Wireline Bureau granted waivers to restore originally requested Emergency Connectivity Fund support to the West Virginia Department of Education and Toms River (New Jersey) Regional School District after both applicants voluntarily reduced their months of service, said an order Wednesday in docket 21-93. The bureau also granted a waiver on its own motion to "similarly situated applicants who modified a first or second window recurring service funding request" prior to the bureau extending the service delivery date to June 30, 2023. Affected applicants have 30 days to file requests with the Universal Service Administrative Co. to "restore the voluntarily reduced months of service" in their initial funding requests. The bureau denied Wellpinit (Washington) School District 49's waiver request because it sought to "increase its support amount beyond what was previously approved and committed."
The Washington State Broadband Office delayed a notice of funding opportunity for its infrastructure acceleration grant (IAG) program, the state’s Commerce Department said Tuesday. The broadband office originally planned to release the NOFO in mid-June but now expects it will come out this fall, with award announcements likely in the first quarter of next year, the department said. The office “plans to use the time between now and the NOFO release in the fall to receive critical stakeholder engagement on a set of policy and procedure questions that are critical to the work we’re all doing,” said Commerce: It will send out questions for comment in “the next few weeks” and host a roundtable discussion in early fall.