TVNewsCheck

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller and Ranking Member John Thune announced a proposal called "Local Choice" they want to attach to the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act (STELA) reauthorization bill.

The move is designed to end TV station blackouts and retransmission consent negotiations by letting subscribers decide if they want to pay the price stations would set for their signals.

A CBS survey of 700 people in the United States with Internet and television connections conducted in 2013 found that 28% said they're watching more television than they did the year before.

Seventeen percent say they're watching less, with the remainder indicating their habits are unchanged. That may not seem like much, but there's a long history of people saying they are watching, or plan to watch, less TV -- even as Nielsen measurements proved the opposite is true.

Now that its Allbritton purchase is done, Sinclair CEO David Smith says he’s eager to start taking on Fox News Channel and MSNBC with NewsChannel 8.

[Commentary] Gannett's move to split into two companies -- one encompassing broadcasting and digital, the other publishing -- is the latest move in a trend reflecting current economic and regulatory realities.

Newspapers have taken it on the chin with the advent of the Internet and the shift of classified advertising, once a newspaper mainstay, to the digital platform.

The split will allow Gannett to avoid Federal Communications Commission newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership restrictions, enabling it to take advantage of acquisition opportunities in each sector.

"There will be fewer regulatory obstacles in two consolidating industries," Gannett CEO Gracia Martore noted, adding that, "Both companies will continue to collaborate on cross-platform sales."

Local TV broadcasters have shifted into high gear with digital advertising efforts, driving an estimated all-time high of nearly $3 billion in new ad revenue for stations in 2014, according to new research commissioned by the Television Bureau of Advertising.

Media General and LIN Media will sell or swap stations in five markets to clear the way for their $1.6 million merger. The five markets are Birmingham and Mobile (AL); Providence (RI); Savannah (GA); and Green Bay (WI).

The station divestitures are required under rules the Federal Communications Commission recently toughened prohibiting a station group from owning more than one station in a market.

[Commentary] A briefing on the legal and regulatory proceedings affecting broadcasters covers the following topics: Aereo, CALM Act (meant to end loud TV commercials), Class A TV, closed captioning, equal employment opportunity rules, emergency information, FCC commissioners, filing freeze, foreign investment in broadcasting, incentive auction, indecency, joint sales agreements, license renewals, LPTV stations, online public inspection files, ownership limits, ownership reporting, political broadcasting, public interest programming disclosure, retransmission consent/must carry, sponsorship id, sports blackout rules, tower and antenna issues, UHF discount, video descriptions, white spaces.

The Copyright Office has shot down Aereo's attempt to recast itself as a cable system that may retransmit broadcast signals to paying online subscribers with the benefit of the cable compulsory license.

"[T]he Office does not believe Aereo qualifies for the Section 111 statutory license and will not process Aereo's filings at this time," says Copyright Office General Counsel Jacqueline Charlesworth in a July 16 letter to Aereo. However, because the copyright status of Aereo is still being litigated, the letter says that the Copyright Office will accept the Aereo filings on a "provisional basis" and withhold final judgment on processing them.

ABC, the home of white-oriented comedies "Modern Family" and "The Middle," will introduce ethnic families in the sitcoms "black-ish," "Cristela" and "Fresh Off the Boat."

All of them have minority creators or producers or both behind the camera, which Paul Lee, ABC Entertainment Group president, said drives the shows' authenticity. "It is a mission statement to reflect America," said Lee,. "That's not so much diversity as authenticity when you reflect America."

[Commentary] Desperate to save itself, Aereo is now rolling out Plan B. In the wake of the June 25 Supreme Court ruling that shot down its juvenile low-tech scheme for circumventing copyright law, the online distributor of local broadcast signals told the federal district court in New York that it wants to continue operating in a more conventional manner, with the cable compulsory license.

As required by law, Aereo said it is going ahead with the necessary paperwork with the Copyright Office. In making the case to the district court that it is a bona fide cable system entitled to the license, Aereo is relying somewhat ironically on the Supreme Court ruling that has pushed it to the precipice.

The problem with Plan B -- and evidence that Aereo is not ready to grow up and play by the rules -- is that it has still not acknowledged in any forum that it is willing to accept not only the privileges of being a cable system, most notably the compulsory license, but also the obligations, most notably retransmission consent and things like must-carry, network non-dupe, syndex and sports blackout. Without a commitment to pay retransmission consent, Aereo is simply playing the same old game, trying to skate by without paying for programming.

It's behaving like the ridiculous FilmOn, which has been claiming cable status for the compulsory license.