PBS TV stations in smaller communities and secondary PBS affiliates and public stations in large ones are ending their free, over-the-air television broadcasts after decades of service because of politics, budget cuts and repacking the TV dial to give up more spectrum for wireless providers.

The most significant trigger for the impending closedown of several stations, especially those run from universities, is the FCC’s spectrum auction and reallocation plan, repacking UHF stations into a much smaller number of available channels, requiring stations to buy new transmitting equipment many cannot afford.

The original plan to repack television stations reassured affected broadcasters that the auction proceeds from the wireless industry auctions would cover the costs of the necessary new equipment.

KNCT’s coverage partly overlaps other nearby public stations.

Then Central Texas College, which owns and operates PBS affiliate KNCT in Belton, Tex., learned Republicans in Congress might appropriate only enough funding to cover 60% of the transition costs. The trustees that oversee KNCT, which serves central Texas, realized they would have to find roughly half of the $4.5 million needed to change their channel from 46 to 17 as part of the “station repack” and hope Congress would change its mind and reimburse the station.

That was money the trustees ultimately decided could not be found, especially as annual deficits at the station now average $500,000 — costs covered by the college.

KNCT general manager Max Rudolph, who has been in charge of KNCT for most of its 38 year history, said the station will now have to leave the airwaves.

“The board had to make a tough decision, but repacking was only the tip of the iceberg,” Rudolph said. “It’s economics — dollars and cents.”

KNCT operates with a staff of 15 — including five part-time employees, that take care of both the PBS TV station and KNCT-FM, which will continue on the air. The annual budget for the TV station was about $1 million, half spent on PBS membership and programming. Donors also provided around $160,000 a year.

KNCT-TV serves the Belton/Killeen/Temple/Waco, Tex. market, although KNCT’s signal struggles to reach into the northeastern part of its service area near Waco, where public TV station KAMU-TV in more distant College Station strangely provides a better signal.

The station hopes to continue operations through online streaming and on-demand shows kept on its website, but both require a subscription to internet service. For parts of central Texas, it represents the end of free PBS over-the-air programming.

Last year, Central Michigan University decided to accept a $14 million offer for satellite PBS station WCMZ-TV in Flint to vacate its current UHF channel and close down for good April 23, 2018. WCMZ-TV’s signal reaches as far away as Port Huron, Detroit and Lansing. But its intended market was Flint, which lacked local PBS service when the station signed on more than 30 years ago. Today, Central Michigan University still operates its primary station WCMU in Mount Pleasant, along with WCMV, which serves Cadillac and Traverse City, WCML, serving Alpena, Petoskey, Cheboygan and the Straits of Mackinac, and WCMW, which broadcasts to the Lake Michigan communities of Manistee, Ludington and Pentwater.

CMU officials are pulling the plug on WCMZ because, they claim, 99 percent of viewers live in areas that are now served by other public broadcasting stations. While cord cutters may miss WCMZ, cable and other pay television customers likely won’t because the service is expected to continue uninterrupted on cable and possibly satellite.

KMTP, San Francisco’s youngest multicultural public television station, is looking for a new home after selling its spectrum for $87.8 million in last year’s FCC auction. KMTP is licensed to Minority Television Project, Inc., a not-for-profit corporation, and serves the San Francisco Bay Area with non-commercial public television. KMTP broadcasts international programming in multiple languages including English and is not affiliated with PBS.

Its best chance to survive is dependent on an acquisition or arrangement with Poquito Mas Communications LLC, the licensee of low-power KCNZ in San Francisco, which is best known for carrying Creation TV, a Chinese language religious network. KMTP can either occupy several of KCNZ’s subchannels, or potentially buy the station outright. As a low power outlet, KMTP can hope to keep carriage on cable television, giving it perfect reception in areas where KCNZ’s low-power UHF transmitter cannot reach. But that means cord-cutters may have no access to the channel unless they live near the transmitter.

WUSF-TV, on the air in Tampa for 51 years, signed off late last year after the University of South Florida decided to liquidate the station for $18.8 million in auction proceeds from the FCC’s spectrum auction. The area’s larger PBS station, WEDU, has absorbed most of the programming that used to appear on WUSF, which now appears as a virtual subchannel on WEDU — unofficially called WEDQ.

Today, WEDU carries six different signals on its over the air digital channel: WEDU/PBS HD, PBS World, PBS Kids, WEDU+, Florida Channel, and Create TV. Many of these services are also available on cable television. But the original competing voice from WUSF is now gone.

WYCC in Chicago was the city’s second PBS affiliate, behind the larger and better known WTTW. Licensed by City Colleges of Chicago, the trustees decided to liquidate WYCC last year for cash as part of the FCC’s spectrum auction.

WYCC began its operations in 1983 with a message from President Ronald Reagan, congratulating the station for producing adult learning programming lacking on commercial television. WYCC first ended its PBS affiliation in 2017 and had one sole program provider, MHz Networks’ WorldView, when it ceased broadcasting on Nov. 27, 2017.

WTTW has sought to claim WYCC’s remaining assets and intends to place WorldView on one of its subchannels in the future. It already grabbed two Australian shows WYCC used to air:  “Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries” and “The Doctor Blake Mysteries.” All that will remain of WYCC are its “call letters,” which could possibly reappear when WTTW launches WorldView.

Allegedly independent Cunningham Broadcasting’s headquarters are located at 2000 West 41st Street in Baltimore, coincidentally the same address as Sinclair-owned WBFF-TV, the city’s FOX affiliate.

An analyst warns Sinclair Broadcasting’s willingness to part with WPIX-TV in New York and WGN-TV in Chicago may amount to transferring control of the stations on paper from one hand to the other.

Broadcasting & Cable reports an unnamed source told the trade publication Sinclair is considering “selling” the stations to Cunningham Broadcasting, which is effectively Sinclair in all but name.

Cunningham and Sinclair are more than a little close. The majority of Cunningham-owned stations are run by Sinclair under local marketing agreements, and Sinclair’s founding family controls more than 90% of Cunningham’s stock. That has led to repeated accusations Cunningham is nothing more than a shell corporation used by Sinclair to circumvent the FCC’s TV station ownership caps, something both companies strenuously deny. But observers note some remarkable coincidences, starting with the Cunningham name itself. Cunningham Farms, on a 200-acre estate, Cunningham Manor, are both owned by Sinclair executive chairman David Smith.

Cunningham Broadcasting’s corporate headquarters are inside the studios of WBFF-TV, Sinclair’s FOX affiliate in Baltimore. Cunningham owns WNUV, Baltimore’s CW affiliate, which is also run from the same building as WBFF.

WNUV was originally planned to be a direct Sinclair acquisition, but FCC rules prohibited that. So Sinclair guaranteed loans allowing Glencairn Ltd., (later to be renamed Cunningham Broadcasting), to acquire WNUV instead. At the time, Carolyn Cunningham Smith, the mother of Sinclair’s current executive chairman David Smith, had voting control of Cunningham. That control has since passed to a trust run for the benefit of Smith’s children after Carolyn died in 2012.

After Glencairn/Cunningham won control of the station, it immediately signed a local marketing agreement with Sinclair. That agreement merged WNUV’s operations under the control of Sinclair-owned WBFF. Most employees at WNUV report to Sinclair management. Many of the Cunningham-owned stations also offer options to Sinclair to acquire the stations outright should deregulation of ownership limits permit.

A shell corporation is essentially an entity in name only, usually quietly controlled by someone else seeking to keep their true identity secret.

Should WPIX-TV and WGN-TV end up in the hands of Cunningham, it would be unprecedented for a company its own president admitted in 2013 was dependent on Sinclair to help program their stations, noting Sinclair is “a smart company, and they certainly have a lot more experience.” WPIX is in the nation’s number one television market, WGN is in the third largest market. The majority of Cunningham’s 20 stations are FOX, CW, or MyNetworkTV affiliates in small and medium-sized markets. A few are so small, they don’t even have websites.

Craig Aaron, president and CEO of Free Press, suspects Sinclair could once again be thumbing its nose at the FCC’s ownership caps, and the planned divestiture may be in name only.

“It’s not clear to me who the new owner is going to be from the documents filed, but it sure looks like business as usual for Sinclair, which has long specialized in propping up shell companies to evade FCC rules,” Aaron told The Baltimore Sun. “The idea that Armstrong Williams [owner of another side entity that also owns stations that Sinclair runs] or Cunningham or whoever they are setting up as the ‘owner’ of these stations is independent from Sinclair, at least if the past is any guide, is a complete fiction. Sinclair should not be allowed to set up shady front companies to evade the congressionally mandated ownership caps. But Ajit Pai’s FCC is aiding and abetting this ruse in every way.”

The FCC’s inspector general is reportedly now investigating whether Pai improperly pushed through ownership cap rule changes to directly benefit Sinclair’s efforts to grow even larger.

Should Sinclair successfully acquire Tribune Media’s television stations, Sinclair will control 233 television stations that reach 72 percent of U.S. households. The FCC’s media ownership cap now limits an single owner’s reach to 39% of the nation’s audience.

While the FCC has shown little interest in slowing down Sinclair, the Justice Department has previously blocked some of Sinclair’s moves. When Sinclair was forced to divest WSYT-TV, the FOX affiliate in Syracuse, N.Y., it first hoped to sell the station to Howard Stirk Holdings, owned by conservative commentator Armstrong Williams.

Williams coincidentally has served as a longtime commentator for Sinclair, which forces its owned and operated stations to carry conservative messages in local newscasts. Sinclair believed so much in Armstrong, it guaranteed his company’s acquisition loans in similar deals. Sinclair may also benefit from the fact that Armstrong, a minority, gets extra consideration and relaxed rules from the FCC to promote minority station ownership. In other deals, after taking ownership, Armstrong promptly signed contracts with Sinclair to run the stations for him.

The Justice Department was not convinced by explanations of the close relationship between Armstrong and Sinclair. It objected to the sale, writing “it wouldn’t work” because “it would still be like a duopoly.” Sinclair also couldn’t persuade the Justice Department to believe Sinclair and Cunningham were completely independent companies either, eventually forcing Sinclair to abandon efforts to sell WSYT to Cunningham. Today WSYT is owned by Northwest Broadcasting, which owns a handful of stations in the rural Rocky Mountain west and has no ties to Sinclair.

Anderson admitted what was behind the maneuvering to sell WSYT in a 2013 Wall Street Journal story.

“They [The Justice Department] were not comfortable yet,” Anderson said, “and in the interest of time, Sinclair went to Plan B [selling the station to Northwest Broadcasting].”

“It’s a scandal,” Aaron told CNN in 2017. “Trump-favoring mega-chain [Sinclair] gets rules changed — and expects others to be erased — so it can put its cookie-cutter newscasts in nearly 70 percent of local markets across the country. I feel terrible for the local journalists who will be forced to set aside their news judgment to air Trump administration talking points and reactionary commentaries from headquarters. This deal would have been DOA in any other administration, but the Trump FCC isn’t just approving it; they’re practically arranging it.”

At least 7,597,945 Floridians are without cable, broadband and phone service after Hurricane Irma left large sections of Florida without power or wired telecommunications service.

According to the Federal Communications Commission, service providers have self-reported multiple large outages including 911 service, cell towers, cable service, and radio and television services. In many cases, the outages are directly tied to power interruptions, and many expect service will resume soon after Florida utilities get electricity service back up and running.

Telephone

Providers report 390 central switching offices are non functioning across Florida at this time. These offices handle landline calls and wired broadband from AT&T and Frontier Communications, among other telephone companies. Where physical damage from wind or water has occurred, it could take weeks or months before those offices are fully restored, but temporary provisions for restoring basic phone service are likely to be in place within days.

There are also significant 911 outages across Florida:

No 911 Service, Calls Going Unanswered: Big Cypress Indian Reservation, Collier County EOC, Ft. Myers Police Department, Glades County Sheriff, Glades County Sheriff Back Up, Hardee County Back Up, Hendry County Sheriff, Highlands County Sheriff, Lee County Emergency Dispatch Center EOC, Naples PD, Okeechobee County Sheriff’s Department, Homestead Air Force, Marathon SO, and Ocean Reef.

911 Service With No Automatic Caller Location Information (ALI): Hardee County Sheriff and Lee County Sheriff

Re-routed with ALI: Atlantic Beach PD, Belle Glade PD, Indian River SO, Manalapan PD, Miami Beach PD, Neptune Beach PD, and St. Augustine PD

Re-routed without ALI: 4 Clewiston Police Department, Desoto County Sheriff, Lee County Backup, and Sanibel Police Department

Potential Outage: The Broward County South Region 911 Center lost power as of 9/10/17 at 2:28PM EDT. We do not know if 911 calls are being rerouted.

Wireless Service

Overall, 27.4% of cell sites in the disaster area of Florida are out of service. The worst outages are in:

• Collier County: 160 of 212 cell sites are down. (75.5%)
• Hendry County: 31 out of 46 cell sites are down. (67.4%)
• Highlands County: 42 out of 80 cell sites are down. (52.5%)
• Lee County: 186 out of 343 cell sites are down. (54.2%)
• Miami-Dade County: 739 out of 1,435 cell sites down. (51.5%)
• Monroe County: 87 out of 108 cell sites down. (80.6%)

Broadcasting

There are two television stations out of service in Florida: WVFW and WZVN. There are 26 radio stations off the air: W227CP, W300CL, W222AW, WROK, WAOA-FM, WHKR, WLZR, WIOD, WOLZ, WINZ, WBTT, WCKT, WRUM, WQOL, WZZR, WSWN, WOTW, WMFQ, WXUS, WYCG, WEAT, WTIR, WMYR, WCNZ, and W294AN.

Dish Network satellite customers in Providence, R.I. are being offered free over-the-air digital antennas in preparation for another retransmission consent dispute with the area’s local ABC station.

Citadel Communications-owned WLNE-TV (6) is warning its contract to allow its signal to be carried over the satellite service expires Friday, Aug. 18 at 7 pm. With negotiations still ongoing, Dish is offering its Providence subscribers free installation of a free antenna to receive local Providence over the air stations if they also agree to cancel Dish’s local station add-on package (just under $10/month).

“We’ve been actively working to negotiate an agreement that keeps ABC6 available on Dish, but Citadel’s unbending attitude and outrageous demands show that this broadcaster has no intention of coming to a deal,” said Dish executive vice president of marketing, programming and media sales Warren Schlichting.

More and more consumers are amenable to switching back to free over the air reception to combat rising subscription costs, and providers are finding new ways to accommodate their customers, even at the risk of losing add-on fees from canceled local station packages.

Providence, R.I.

With local television station retransmission consent fees rising faster than other cable and satellite programming fees, some providers would prefer to drop local stations but cannot without alienating customers. The biggest impediment to getting customers to switch to over-the-air reception is signal quality.

In some markets, local station reception can vary considerably depending on where the customer watches. Digital reception problems cause pixelation and picture freezes, and correcting these can require regular antenna repositioning or an outdoor antenna, especially in fringe reception areas.

In Providence, several thousand Dish customers have switched back to over the air reception after being offered a free antenna, which offers as many as 45 free broadcast TV channels from Rhode Island and adjacent markets.

Sinclair’s deal with Tribune will make them by far the largest TV station ownership group in the country, owning 16% of the TV stations in the U.S. (Image: Mother Jones)

After a hard-hitting piece analyzing the close ties between President Donald J. Trump, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, and Sinclair Broadcasting appeared in this morning’s New York Times, a group of leading House Democrats serving on the House Energy & Commerce Committee have written Mr. Pai asking for answers about his possible “favorable treatment” of Sinclair Broadcasting since becoming Chairman of the FCC.

These reports, according to the letter, raise two overarching questions:

• Whether actions taken by the FCC under your leadership show a pattern of preferential treatment for Sinclair, and
• Whether a series of interactions between your office, the Trump Campaign and Trump Administration, and Sinclair demonstrate inappropriate coordination.

The letter’s signers — all Democrats — are Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (ranking member of the full committee), Rep. Mike Doyle (ranking member of the Communications and Technology Subcommittee), and Rep. Diana DeGette (ranking member, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations).

The 12-page letter presents Pai with multiple examples of potential collusion and favorable treatment of a television station group that airs mandatory pro-Trump Administration commentaries on all of its local newscasts, employs a former Trump campaign aide, has sought private meetings with administration officials , and has made substantial campaign contributions.

The Times article appears to be the source for most of the concern expressed in the letter, which lays out multiple issues and seeks Mr. Pai’s comments and explanations.

At the beginning of the Trump Administration, the Democrats claim, Mr. Pai has undertaken a number of actions in his role as Chairman of the FCC that fall squarely in line with the corporate expansion agenda at Sinclair Broadcast Group. Among the most important was Mr. Pai’s sudden decision to bring a party-line vote to reinstate an archaic UHF Discount rule, which allows a company to downgrade the reach of its UHF stations for the purposes of determining if it is within the FCC’s limit of one station owner reaching no more than 39% of the country. This “discount” was established at a time when analog television signals on the UHF band (Channels 14+) were at a distinct coverage disadvantage over stations occupying the VHF (Channels 2-13) band. The discount was retired after the U.S. switched to digital television broadcasting, which largely eliminated this coverage disparity.

TV station owners saw a revival of the UHF Discount not as a way to deal with reception differences, but rather as a loophole to launch new acquisitions by discounting the coverage of their current stations. Only one company – Sinclair Broadcasting – stood to gain the most from the reinstatement of the UHF Discount. Almost on cue, two weeks after Pai brought this obscure rule up and reinstated it on a 2-1 vote, Sinclair announced a blockbuster merger with Tribune to acquire stations that will allow Sinclair to cover 70% of the United States, a number impossible to achieve without Pai’s support for the UHF Discount.

Democrats argue this was not what Congress intended, and it allows one station owner to own and control approximately double the number of stations the ownership cap would normally prohibit. They argue such a deal will reduce the diversity of media voices in communities across the country, especially in markets where Sinclair will own and operate more than one television station.

The New York Times provides this chart illustrating the vast expansion of stations if it wins control of Tribune Media.

The Democrats are also upset the FCC, under Pai’s leadership, appears to be in a hurry to get this deal reviewed and likely approved. It set a review window of just 30 days for public comment, considerably shorter than earlier, less controversial acquisition deals. Critics of the deal contend that the FCC is giving inadequate consideration of the deal’s lack of public interest benefits, and Sinclair’s application is vague and its claims are difficult to validate. Pai seems unconcerned, leading some to believe he intends to rubber stamp his approval with minimal conditions.

Ajit Pai, Chairman of U.S Federal Communications Commission. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard

Under Pai’s watch, the Democrats charge, Sinclair has already benefited from a ‘rush to approval’ mentality at the FCC. Sinclair’s earlier deal to acquire stations owned by the Bonten Media Group was also convenient, coming shortly after the FCC under Mr. Pai revoked guidance that would have required the FCC to closely scrutinize the transaction. The FCC granted the deal, despite the fact several of Bonten’s stations are in areas where Sinclair now holds operating agreements to manage other local stations. Large station groups have used these agreements as loopholes to effectively gain day-to-day control of stations without actually transferring their ownership.

The Democrats also argue that Sinclair is well positioned to be in the lead of Next Gen TV, ATSC 3.0 technology that will replace the current digital TV standard in the United States in the next few years. Sinclair is the biggest cheerleader of the new technology, and Mr. Pai coincidentally has put a rush on getting ATSC 3.0 approved and into the marketplace. ONE Media 3.0, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sinclair, just happens to own six critical patents essential for using the Next Gen TV standard. That means every station in the country moving to the next broadcast platform will have to pay royalties to Sinclair estimated in the billions.

As the Times reports, whenever Sinclair sought something from Washington as part of its corporate agenda, the FCC’s Mr. Pai quickly aligned himself and the FCC’s Republican majority to fulfill Sinclair’s wishes.

Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-N.J.) is ranking member of the House Energy & Commerce Committee.

The Democrats also question whether there is direct coordination between the Administration, Sinclair, and the FCC:

• After the election, President Trump reportedly met with the Executive Chairman and former CEO of Sinclair and discussed changing FCC rules to help Sinclair. A news account stated that after the election, President Trump met with David Smith, Sinclair’s Executive Chairman and former CEO. According to this report, “potential FCC rule changes were discussed” after President Trump asked Mr. Smith, “What do you need to happen in your business?”

• Before you became Chairman of the FCC, you reportedly met with then President-elect Trump in New York. Reports indicate that on January 16 of this year, you met with then-President-elect Trump in New York in a meeting that did not appear on your official calendar.

• In March, shortly after you became Chairman of the FCC, you met with President Trump in the Oval Office. An FCC spokesperson confirmed that the meeting occurred, but did not indicate what was discussed during the meeting. When asked directly about your meetings with President Trump, you declined to disclose what you discussed, saying “I am not at liberty to say.”

• The week after the election, you reportedly attended a company conference for Sinclair’s general managers, during which you met with Sinclair’s CEO. According to a Politico report, in January of this year, you met with Sinclair’s former CEO, David Smith, as well as the newly named Sinclair CEO, Chris Ripley.

• The President’s campaign reportedly “struck a deal” with Sinclair to “secure better media coverage.” This arrangement came to light after the election, when Jared Kushner reportedly revealed that in exchange for access to then-candidate Trump and his campaign, “Sinclair would broadcast Trump interviews across the country without commentary.” Sinclair representatives have defended this arrangement by claiming that the Clinton campaign was offered the option for extended interviews with local anchors as well, but did not accept.

• In April, Boris Epshteyn, who was “most recently Special Assistant to The President and Assistant Communications Director for Surrogate Operations for the Executive Office of President Trump,” and formerly a “senior advisor to the Trump campaign,” joined Sinclair to provide on-air political commentary. Epshteyn’s segments are “must-run” programming for Sinclair stations, with nine segments airing per week. One report has criticized the segments as “propaganda” and reporting on Sinclair’s selection of “must-run” programming has raised “suggestions that Sinclair pushed right-leaning views.”

The Democrats are requesting Mr. Pai answer their letter and provide additional information no later than Aug. 28.