Washington Beat

Here’s a list of the FCC’s latest licenses, construction permits and transfers of control—granted and dismissed—for TV, AM and FM. This list is current as of 2/14/14:

FCC denies stay of auction start for LPTVs.

Layton has plenty to say about "net neutrality." So do leaders at TechFreedom and Tech Knowledge

"Steps are now being taken at the White House to deconstruct the administrative state by taking a sledgehammer to the federal bureaucracy." Those are the words from Garvey Schubert Barer Communications Group co-chair Erwin Krasnow, who opines in this exclusive Intelligence Brief that the White House has the power to produce great change at the FCC. The question, as he sees it, is how aggressive the Trump Administration can be.

Much fun -- including FCC Chairman Ajit Pai singing the chorus to a Rick Astley classic -- was seen at the start of a meeting that involved the Commission's relaxation of third-party fundraising restrictions for noncommercial radio and TV stations. The Commission also made a party-line 2-1 ruling that made optional a previously mandatory requirement that compelled the officers and board members of noncommercial educational stations to report personal information. We've got the details.

Television set manufacturer LG has a huge stake in the success of ATSC 3.0. That's why it filed comments this week in the FCC's next-gen TV proceeding. Here's what LG had to say.

The FCC has opened up its window for nominations for membership on its Advisory Committee on Diversity and Digital Empowerment. A Chairperson is also sought for the forthcoming committee, which would see tenures of two years for members and become active this autumn.

PBS and America’s Public Television Stations (APTS) are getting financial assistance during the post-incentive auction repack period to translator stations that extend public television signals into hard-to-reach rural areas. No, it's not coming from ongoing pledge drives at many of the nation's noncommercial classical music stations.

It's official: The FCC's Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau has set Sept. 27 as the date for the next nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System. With a notice released Monday, the EAS Test Reporting System is now open for 2017 filings. Perhaps most importantly for radio and TV stations, the latest edition of the EAS Operating Handbook has been released. 

The FCC's Media Bureau late Thursday released a public notice seeking the public's input on the state of competition in the video programming delivery marketplace. Specifically, it wants to know about MVPDs, online video distributors, and broadcast TV stations. Comments are due Oct. 10, and they could be numerous.

Doug Ferber of DEFcom Advisors LLC and Erwin Krasnow of Garvey Schubert Barer have created a special podcast series exclusively for RBR+TVBR members based on a series of articles centered on the topic "Broadcast Deal Myths Debunked." In this second episode, Ferber and Krasnow discuss the following topic: "It's Not Negotiable."

Barring the unexpected, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai entered the day all but assured of a second term at the FCC, ensuring he will remain the leader through the end of June 2021. The U.S. Senate made it official Monday afternoon (10/2), confirming him for a second term that retroactively began July 1, 2016, in a 52-41 vote.

The Media Bureau is temporarily lifting a freeze imposed on the filing and processing of full power and Class A station applications—a move that it says "will help ensure the utility of an upcoming application filing window for secondary stations displaced by the incentive auction repacking process."

The FCC has selected the program manager for Native American and International Affairs at the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to serve as its new chief of ONAP -- the Office of Native Affairs and Policy.