Regulation

The Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday announced that it would be launching a new task force dedicated to “free and fair competition” in the world of tech. The 17-lawyer team will investigate anticompetitive behavior in the tech sphere, according to the regulator, and will review tech mergers past and present.

A feisty FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly told an audience of broadcasters in town to press the D.C. flesh and their positions on various policymakers that if the FCC gets its latest (quadrennial) review of ownership rules right, it will “allow the commission to jettison its myopic vision that broadcasters experience little competition in favor of one that recognizes the fulsome competitive forces in the current marketplace.”

The FAA has issued a new set of rules requiring all unmanned aircraft systems (or drones) to display official registration numbers on the outside of the aircraft. Previously, registered drone’s unique identifier could be stored inside the device in an easily accessible area such as in the battery compartment so long as it was “readable and legible upon close visual inspection.”

The FCC is seeking comment on the TV ratings system, as Congress told it it had to do in the omnibus appropriations legislation that was enacted Feb. 15 and which averted a second government shutdown. In a public notice today, the FCC’s Media Bureau “seeks comment on the accuracy of the television content rating system, known as the TV Parental Guidelines, and the ability of the governing body for TV ratings, the TV Parental Guidelines Oversight Monitoring Board, to oversee the ratings system and address public concerns.”

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals is allowing the huge merger between AT&T and Time Warner to stand. On Tuesday, the appellate court ruled that the government had failed to prove that the transaction valued between $85 to $105 billion that would give the nation’s largest telecom control over CNN, TBS, and TNT amounted to enhanced leverage that would harm the marketplace.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai signaled Friday that the FCC is preparing to start accepting next-gen TV (ATSC 3.0) license applications and that the Media Bureau is even now working on an order to wrap up some open issues, including the local simulcasting requirement for stations without a viable partner, and a second order to resolve various petitions for reconsideration (filed by cable operators).

At its March 15 meeting, the FCC is scheduled to consider adopting rules that would allow for the sale of satellite television stations (stations that serve principally rural areas primarily by rebroadcasting some or all of another station in the market) without an extensive economic showing of the continuing need for satellite operation. Instead, when evaluating a sale, the FCC proposes to essentially assume that the need for a combined operation continues to exist unless there is a showing to the contrary demonstrating that the satellite could operate independently.

The FCC will be voting on a proposal at its March 15 meeting to establish rules for handing out the additional $1 billion Congress approved for post incentive-auction TV station (and now some radio station) repack/moving expenses.

The recently passed 2019 Appropriations bill — the one that avoided a second government shutdown — was a massive tome that included directing the FCC to provide a “full analysis” of its treatment of market modification petitions. Those are petitions by broadcasters or satellite operators or county officials to modify a market so that satellite viewers in a Nielsen market that crosses state lines can get local news and sports from TV stations from another Nielsen market in their own state instead.

Empire actor Jussie Smollett staged a racist and homophobic attack because he was unhappy about his salary and wanted to promote his career, Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnso said Thursday. Producers Fox Entertainment and 20th Century Fox Television issued a statement Thursday saying that they were “evaluating the situation” and “considering our options.”

Local journalists are reckoning with a new reality: The greatest threat to working in journalism is public contempt for us as a workforce. Journalists should be able to go to work without fear of being attacked or intimidated. In addition to providing training on increased safety measures, journalists need legislative action to ensure violence is not an acceptable form of criticism and to penalize those who recklessly interfere efforts to seek and report the truth on behalf of the public.

In recent months, there have been many calls to regulate e-cigs, and potentially to regulate the marketing of all sorts of vaping products, including a call last week by an FCC Commissioner in an op-ed article in USA Today. So far, the FCC has had no real role in regulating these products.  In fact, one wonders if it really has any authority to take action against the advertising of e-cigs without congressional action.

Following three weeks of mounting suspicions, Empire actor Jussie Smollett was charged Wednesday with making a false police report, a charge that could bring up to three years in prison and force the actor, who is black and gay, to pay for the cost of the investigation into his report of a Jan. 29 beating. Smollett turned himself in to Chicago police Thursday morning and is expected to appear in court later in the day.

Justice Clarence Thomas on Tuesday called for the Supreme Court to reconsider New York Times v. Sullivan, the landmark 1964 ruling interpreting the First Amendment to make it hard for public officials to prevail in libel suits. He said the decision was the product of unprincipled “legal alchemy” that had no basis in the Constitution as understood by the people who drafted and ratified it.

Broadcasters are telling the FCC its proposal to open up the 6 GHz spectrum for unlicensed wireless is not ready for prime time, and may never be. Broadcasters use the band for auxiliary (BAS) operations and NAB says the FCC’s proposed interference protections — limiting it to lower-power, indoor operations — miss the mark, particularly since some camera transmitters used to relay footage back to stations also operate indoors and at low power, so they would be in the interference line of fire even with those limitations on unlicensed devices.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is staying out of a lawsuit involving the television show “Empire.” The high court said Tuesday it won’t take a case involving the Fox […]

On Friday, the FCC issued its first EEO audit of almost 300 radio and TV stations across the country, the day after announcing its intent to abolish the Form 397 EEO Mid-Term Report.

Here’s a timeline to help keep track of the twists and turns in the reported assault on Jussie Smollett, the Empire actor.

Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson contacted at least one Chicago news outlet to say investigators have no evidence to support their reporting that the attack against Empire actor Jussie Smollett was a hoax. The spokesman added that Johnson said the “supposed CPD sources are uninformed and inaccurate.”

The FCC gave a rather significant Valentine’s Day gift to broadcasters, eliminating the requirement that larger radio and television stations submit the EEO Mid-Term Report (FCC Form 397) at the midpoint of their license terms.  While the FCC will continue to conduct EEO mid-term reviews, it determined that filing the EEO Mid-Term Report was no longer necessary, as most of the information required for an EEO mid-term review is already available in a broadcaster’s Online Public Inspection File.