Regulation

The Justice Department has signed off on the sale of 15 TV stations from Evening Post Industries’ (EPI) Cordillera Communications to Scripps for $521 million. That came in an early termination notice Tuesday released by the Federal Trade Commission, which divvies up merger reviews. The notice means that the antitrust review has been ended early with no issues that would cause the deal to be blocked or conditioned.

House Democrats are asking the FCC for documentation about its operations as they prepare to challenge the agency with their newfound oversight powers.

An appeals court has again denied Charter’s effort to dismiss the claim by Byron Allen’s Entertainment Studios that the cable operator’s “refusal” to enter into a carriage contract with the programmer was racially motivated. The case now proceeds to trial unless it is settled beforehand.

Former Democratic FCC commissioner Mignon Clyburn is advising T-Mobile and Sprint on their proposed $26 billion merger as the two companies seek regulatory approval from her former agency. She said that she sees the work as a continuation of her efforts in government to expand internet access to hard-to-reach and overlooked communities.

The C-Band Alliance’s voluntary, market-based plan to clear 200 MHz for 5G wireless while fully protecting the TV and other current C-band customers. This should be a “no brainer” — private companies using their own capital to clear voluntarily the mid-band spectrum necessary to bring 5G to all Americans and to stay even with China in the race to 5G while protecting existing customers.

Lately, the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice headed by Makan Delrahim has been undermining the FCC — and perhaps even Congress — and disrupting the broadcasting business as it struggles to ward off rivals for viewers and ad dollars on multiple fronts. I cannot remember a time when Justice has plunged so deeply into the nitty gritty of the broadcasting advertising marketplace and what kind of local station combinations should be allowed.

Spanish-language network Univision on Friday joined a lawsuit against the Commerce Department’s decision to include a citizenship question on the upcoming 2020 U.S. Census. The media company signed on to a lawsuit pursued in northern California, challenging the Commerce Department’s authority to add a question on citizenship to the census.

Fox and Netflix’s long legal dust-up over the streamer’s snatching of two executives almost three years ago is heating up as the former attempts to get the upcoming trial pushed back and the sparring latter wants to draw Rupert Murdoch’s New Fox and almost every other studio in town into the damning action.

In a filing with the FCC, the station group says it will ask the agency for a waiver of the rule that prohibits common ownership of two top four stations in a market. Nexstar also acknowledges that it will have to exit markets to comply with the commission’s 39% ownership cap. As things now stand, the merger would swell Nexstar’s coverage to 47.1%.

The National Association of Broadcasters continued to lead the industry’s lobbying charge in 2018, spending $14.16 million on lobbying efforts last year, according to an Inside Radio review of disclosure filings. That represented an 8% decline compared to what the NAB allocated to lobbying in 2017. The reports also show the NAB reduced its lobbying spending by 23% from 2016 to 2018.

With another FCC spectrum auction in the books, many broadcasters may be interested in taking stock of the value of their spectrum usage rights and the likelihood that they may have an opportunity to monetize their spectrum sometime in the future. Let’s start with the most recent news and then try to figure out what it means for broadcasters.

Dish Network, which has blacked out several Univision-run channels after failing to reach a new distribution deal with the programmer, has lobbed a lawsuit at Univision claiming that the Spanish-language broadcaster is infringing a batch of patents tied to adaptive bit-rate streaming.

Rep. Doris Matsui of California has been named vice chair of the House Communications Subcommittee. The Subcommittee is chaired by Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.). Matsui has been an active member of the subcommittee, particularly on high-tech issues like the Internet of Things and blockchain, and pushing for strong net neutrality rules.

Net neutrality supporters will get their day in court this week as they challenge the FCC’s repeal of the popular Obama-era internet rules. A panel of federal appeals court judges will hear oral arguments Friday in a lawsuit challenging the FCC’s deregulation of the broadband industry.

The FCC held its “blink and you missed it” Jan. 30 meeting Wednesday afternoon, but only to thank returning staffers and give a warm welcome its newest member, Democratic commissioner Geoffrey Starks. The meeting was a pro forma affair after the government shutdown forced the FCC to move its agenda to the Feb. 14 meeting after not being sure when the government would reopen.

Department of Justice antitrust chief Makan Delrahim says that Justice will hold a two-day workshop on the impact of online advertising on the local broadcast TV market, and whether it should adjust its merger reviews given the argument that the edge is now competing for the local car dealer ads and should be considered part of the relevant competitive market.

With the partial government shutdown mercifully at an end (for now), broadcasters must hurry to update their Online Public Inspection File and make up for a month’s worth of missed filings.

Trump announced the agreement to break the 35-day impasse as intensifying delays at the nation’s airports and widespread disruptions brought new urgency to efforts to resolve the standoff. The deal would open the government for three weeks while negotiations continue over the president’s demands for money to build his long-promised wall at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The FCC said it plans to proceed with the scheduled Jan. 30 public meeting, but it will be pretty much of a pro forma exercise since there will be no votes on any of the agenda items. “There is a requirement in the Communications Act that the FCC meet monthly,” said an FCC spokesperson.