Regulation

An episode that references the Tiananmen Square massacre is left out of the recently launched Disney+ streaming lineup.

The Biden administration made a statement earlier this month when the Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit to block the $2.1 billion sale of Simon & Schuster. Merrick Garland’s body block of the deal that ViacomCBS struck with Bertelsmann’s Penguin Random House sends the message that the White House is paying attention to the pace of consolidation in media and entertainment. If the antitrust division is worried about too much concentration among owners of the oldest of mass media platforms — books — just think how the Attorney General’s watchdogs would view nuptials among two major studios or more big-name broadcast and cable assets.

With many of their employees either off today or working a half-day in preparation for the Thanksgiving holiday, broadcasters were settling in for what would hopefully be a couple of slow news days and a long weekend. However, as so often happens, the path out of the station to a Thanksgiving feast has been blocked by a regulatory development. Fortunately, it is one that has a relatively easy fix.

President Joe Biden’s pick for a seat on the FCC, Gigi Sohn, will get a Dec. 1 confirmation hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee, as will Biden’s nominee for another key telecommunications post, Alan Davidson, nominated to head the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration.

So far in his tenure, the president has given far fewer one-on-one interviews than his two predecessors. Some Democrats are asking if he could be making better use of his White House pulpit.

An arbitrator rules that the actor’s pattern of sexual harassment caused damage to MRC and flouted…An arbitrator rules that the actor’s pattern of sexual harassment caused damage to MRC and flouted contractual obligations.

The FCC is getting video streamers, multichannel video programming distributors and others together to talk about the state of closed captioning for online programming. It has scheduled a Dec. 2 forum with a keynote address from Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), a longtime advocate for greater communications accessibility as author of the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010.

A bipartisan group of at least 10 state attorneys general is investigating how Instagram may harm children and teens. The group, which includes AGs from California, Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee, Texas and Vermont, will investigate the methods used by Instagram to attract and encourage engagement among young people, and whether parent company Meta — née Facebook —has violated consumer protection laws and put the public at risk.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is challenging the Federal Trade Commission’s chairwoman, contending in a series of letters that she is overstepping the agency’s legal authority. The agency says it won’t back down.

Acting FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel said Thursday (Nov. 18) that her planned refresh of the record on independent content providers’ access to distribution platforms will need to include over-the-top video.

Two House Democrats from California, Reps. Anna Eshoo and Zoe Lofgren, have reintroduced a sweeping privacy bill that would impose broad restrictions on companies’ ability to use online data for ad targeting.

Armstrong Williams: “My company, Howard Stirk Holdings, is one of only two African-American commercial television station licensee enterprises in the United States today. I have seen just how hard it is to grow and build HSH, and I do not want an FCC nominee to saddle the industry with unnecessary, harmful regulations.”

The Senate Commerce Committee vetted the renomination of acting FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel for a new, five-year term today (Nov. 17) and nary was heard a discouraging word. If confirmed, President Joe Biden has signaled he will designate her permanent chairman, the first woman to hold that post. (Mignon Clyburn was the first woman to be acting chair.)

The Federal Aviation Administration said on Tuesday it is in direct talks with the telecom industry about its aviation safety concerns involving the planned use of spectrum for 5G wireless communications.

Under the agreement, the U.S. will issue one-year multiple-entry visas to Chinese journalists and will immediately initiate a process to address “duration of status” issues, China Daily said. China will reciprocate by granting equal treatment to U.S. journalists once the U.S. policies take effect, and both sides will issue media visas for new applicants “based on relevant laws and regulations.”

Gigi Sohn’s nomination to the FCC is on a lot shakier ground than that of Acting Chair Jessica Rosenworcel. If Sohn fails to be confirmed, broadcasters should lobby for a candidate who better understands how the agency can give the industry its best chance to flourish.

The bipartisan vote Tuesday was 68-29 to confirm Jonathan Kanter, an antitrust lawyer who has opposed tech giants in private practice, as assistant attorney general heading the Justice Department’s antitrust division. The position has been without a permanent head for nearly a year as Biden and his advisers sifted through a number of qualified candidates and then nominated Kanter in July to face Senate vetting.

Criticized by Republicans, Khan tells agency staffers she aims to build bridges going forward.

Actor Eliza Dushku shared her experience facing sexual harassment on the set of CBS’s Bull in front of a House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, speaking out about being fired from the show and forced to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

President Joe Biden has named former New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu to oversee the administration’s massive infrastructure plan, including the $65 billion investment in broadband. Landrieu will be senior adviser and infrastructure coordinator, directing historic investments in universal high-speed internet access, as well as money for roads, bridges, rail, ports, airports, climate “resilience” and more.

The Local Journalism Sustainability Act, which if passed would see the federal government subsidizing the hiring of local reporters and newsroom employees via tax credits, is a troubling and ill-advised giveaway to commercial TV broadcasters.

Commission approval clears the way for Gray’s purchase of Meredith’s TV stations, with Meredith anticipating closing on Dec. 1.

The Justice Department and the SEC have contacted companies that discussed investing in the Silicon Valley media business.

The Senate Commerce Committee has scheduled a Nov. 17 nomination hearing for Acting Chair Jessica Rosenworcel. She must be vetted and voted in before the end of the year or she would have to leave the commission since her term has already expired. But not on that hearing schedule is President Biden’s other nominee to the FCC, Gigi Sohn.

In his final State of the Industry address before leaving the association, Gordon Smith, President-CEO of the National Association of Broadcasters, laid out nine lessons for the industry that started with the importance of negotiating and included the admonition that the “NAB should never register Republican or Democrat, but as human, local and American. We uphold and defend American values, such as factual journalism and the First Amendment. Neither party satisfies 100% of our issues. We need friends on both sides of the aisle.”