Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.)’s proposed “Stop The Censorship Act” would strip online platforms of the protections of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, if they remove lawful posts by users.
Santiago Garces, Pittsburgh’s director of innovation and performance, fears an FCC vote this week could mean the end to free cable boxes and internet connectivity provided to the city to roughly half of the city’s buidigs for free by Comcast and Verizon.
Dish says it will combine $5 billion in assets being spun off from the Sprint-T-Mobile merger with its own vast reserves of wireless spectrum to compete head-on with AT&T, Verizon and Sprint-T-Mobile. “We’ve been here before,” said Dish CEO Charlie Ergen. “When we entered pay-TV with the launch of our first satellite in 1995, we faced entrenched cable monopolies, and our direct competitor was owned by one of the largest industrial corporations in the world.”
The Modern Television Act of 2019, introduced by Reps. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and Steve Scalise (R-La.), addresses “perennial broadcast TV blackouts” caused by failed retrans negotiations. It contains familiar asks from the pair, including regulation of blackouts and providing for outside arbitration of negotiation impasses. Elements of the legislation could find their way into the legislation renewing the satellite distant-signal license.
In meetings and phone calls with FCC officials, executives of public TV stations and PBS are arguing that public stations be exempt from having to simulcast ATSC 1.0 signals when they make the move to ATSC 3.0. The public stations deserve the waiver, they say, given “the unique mission, structure, governance, finances, history, geographic layout, and regulatory treatment” of educational licensees. Cable operators oppose all exemptions.
The cable operator submitted a proposal to the Justice Department to buy certain assets being spun off by the merger of the two wireless companies, but never heard back from the agency, three sources familiar with the matter said. Instead, Justice opted for a plan to sell the assets to Dish. Justice is expected to greenlight the merger.
Exclusives
Tech companies like Google and Facebook have created great wealth for themselves by harvesting and commercializing the private data that users of their services carelessly leave behind. Now, policymakers and researchers are looking for ways to assign a value to the data and share some of the digital wealth with individuals and society.
As Facebook’s on-going troubles with Justice, the FTC and the SEC vividly illustrate, high tech media will be, from here on out, under constant and deepening scrutiny from policymakers and regulators.
WASHINGTON, July 24, 2019—FEMA, in coordination with the FCC, will conduct a nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) on Wed., Aug. 7, 2019. The nationwide test will be sent to radio […]
The fine is the largest the Federal Trade Commission has levied on a tech company. As part of the settlement, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will have to personally certify his company’s compliance with its privacy programs. The FTC said that false certifications could expose him to civil or criminal penalties.
The state Supreme Court ruled that the public has a right to records in an earlier case in which Gray Television’s argued successfully that its CBS affiliate WCAX Burlington should not be forced to turn over to police footage of a shooting in January 2018. “This unanimous decision is an important victory not only for the Vermont media, but all Vermonters, who depend on journalists to be independent and not take sides in any kind of story,” said Lisa Loomis, president of the Vermont Press Association.
As part of the agreement settling DOJ’s antitrust concerns, the merging companies would spin off assets to Dish that would facilitate its entry into the wireless market as a new No. 4. The arrangement provides for Dish to acquire prepaid subscribers and wireless licenses from the merger partners, the Wall Street Journal says citing unnamed sources. Dish would also get a multiyear agreement to use the wireless companies’ network while it builds its own infrastructure.
The Justice Department said it will investigate how internet giants like Facebook, Amazon and Google have accumulated market power and whether they have acted to reduce competition. Similar inquiries are underway in Congress and at the Federal Trade Commission, which shares antitrust oversight responsibilities with the DOJ.
The California Supreme Court handed CNN a partial victory in its dispute with fired producer Stanley Wilson, who was terminated over plagiarism concerns. The court’s opinion offers the possibility looking ahead that employment discrimination and retaliation lawsuits will face more scrutiny at the outset.
Jessell | Let’s Do Away With Anti-Retrans Quinquennials
Every five years, satellite operators ask Congress to renew the law that gives them the right to import network affiliated broadcast signals into “white areas” where subscribers cannot get local affiliates off air. And every five years, the operators and their cable allies try to dirty the bill with provisions that will make it more difficult for broadcasters to negotiate for retransmisson consent fees. NAB’s job is clear: Convince Congress to kill the renewal legislation or pass a “clean” bill and make it permanent.
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press is leading a coalition of 38 media organizations, including RTDNA, in arguing against the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed changes to its Freedom of Information Act regulations.
Retrans battles are known for their gamesmanship, but Nexstar’s characterization of some of the Hill pushback on the ongoing retrans impasse with AT&T’s DirecTV drew the ire of one local paper, some MVPD fans, and, ultimately, some corrections.
A Tuesday afternoon panel of the House Judiciary Committee focused on whether it’s time for Congress to rein in these companies, which are among the largest on Earth by several measures. Central to that case is whether their business practices run afoul of century-old laws originally designed to combat railroad and oil monopolies.
“We are concerned that the FTC has failed to impose strict structural reforms and managerial accountability that would put an end to Facebook’s privacy invasions,” Sens. Ed Markey, Richard Blumenthal and Josh Hawley write.
Fired Forecaster Paul Ossmann Sues WGCL
The House Antitrust Subcommittee is holding the second of its two Big Tech hearings this week, hearing from the FAAG in FAANG, lacking only Netflix among the witness list and definitely meeting the criteria for the hearing’s title.
The FCC and Public Knowledge veteran succeeds the retiring Gene Kimmelman as head of the public interest group.
While a $5 billion fine from the FTC, which Facebook has been expecting, is by far the largest the agency has levied on a technology company, the real worries for Facebook — and its investors and the companies that use it to advertise on its service — are the other restrictions and government oversight that might come with it.
The American Television Alliance (ATVA) is using the Nextar/DirecTV retrans impasse to pitch Congress on renewing STELAR, the satellite license law that also includes requiring the FCC to enforce good faith negotiations in retrans disputes.
A Look At The KidVid Rule Changes
At its July 2019 Open Meeting this week, the FCC voted to make several changes to its Children’s Television Programming rules. It released its final order adopting the changes Friday afternoon. Although characterized by Commissioner O’Rielly as “modest” changes, the revised rules are likely to alter television broadcasters’ compliance efforts in several significant respects, including the time at which the programming is aired, the type of programming that qualifies as educational and how a broadcaster demonstrates compliance with the revised rules.
AT&T has sued Max Retrans, a consultant that works with TV stations negotiating with distributors, claiming it used confidential data to get higher fees for its clients. In U.S. Court in St. Louis, AT&T said it is seeking an unspecified amount of damages, including inflated retransmission consent fees, punitive damages, attorney’s fees and court costs.
KDLT Says DOJ Has OK’d Sale To Gray
An internal email from the GM of Red River Broadcasting’s NBC affiliate in Sioux Falls, S.D., says the Justice Department has signed off on the $32 million sale to Gray Television first proposed in 2018.
Citing a greater variety of children’s programming available, the commision relaxed its regulations, giving broadcasters greater flexibility in meeting their mandates.
The FCC today continued taking steps to update to its notification rules for cable and satellite TV providers by proposing to change required notices to broadcast TV stations from paper […]
