Regulation

FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, who is widely expected to be named acting FCC chair next week — and perhaps more than acting — used a portion of her statement on the FCC’s first meeting of the new year and last meeting for chairman Ajit Pai to talk a little about the recent violence at the Capitol from the vantage of someone who frequented its halls as a top staffer.

Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and a baker’s dozen of Democratic members of the California congressional delegation have called on attorney general nominee Merrick Garland to make net neutrality one of his first orders of business in the new post. Garland has been a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which has principle oversight of FCC decisions like the elimination of net neutrality rules.

Frontier has told the FCC that its beef with Gray Television is over the value of the TV signal and that Gray’s retransmission consent complaint against Frontier “lacks any basis in fact or law.” Gray formally complained to the FCC that Frontier was not negotiating in good faith and did not give is customers “as soon as possible” notice of a potential blackout, both of which are required under FCC rules.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who is exiting the commission Jan. 20, said his reforms of the agency since taking over in 2017 have fundamentally changed the FCC for the better. In a virtual address to the Free State Foundation, Pai took something of a victory lap, outlining the ways he thought his process reforms had made the agency more transparent and effective, by clearing out the regulatory underbrush, a pledge he made early on.

Broadcasters are telling the Supreme Court that a lower court’s rejection of the FCC’s broadcast dereg decision was a recipe for “judicial intervention run riot” and that diversity alone cannot be invoked to block deregulation of rules that marketplace changes have rendered unsupportable and no longer necessary in the public interest.

The Copyright Royalty Board today published a Federal Register notice announcing that SoundExchange was auditing a number of broadcasters and other webcasters to assess their compliance with the statutory music licenses provided by Sections 112 and 114 of the Copyright Act for the public performance of sound recordings and ephemeral copies made in the digital transmission process by commercial webcasters.

President Donald Trump has prepared a sweeping list of individuals he’s hoping to pardon in the final days of his administration that includes senior White House officials, family members, prominent rappers — and possibly himself, according to people familiar with the matter. Trump is hoping to announce the pardons on Jan. 19 — his final full day in office — and his ideas are currently being vetted by senior advisers and the White House counsel’s office, the people said.

Protesters loyal to President Trump stormed the Capitol on Wednesday, halting Congress’s counting of the electoral votes to confirm President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory as the police evacuated lawmakers from the building.

President Donald Trump has issued an executive order essentially banning a host of Chinese-connected software applications, including Alipay and Wechat, saying the ban targeted apps that “access and capture vast swaths of information from users, including sensitive personally identifiable information and private information,” by accessing smartphones, computers and tablets.

A federal appellate court has revived a class-action complaint alleging that Google overcharged pay-per-click advertisers by reneging on a promise to discount some ads, and failing to limit ads by location.

Richard M. Bates, longtime senior vice president, U.S. government relations for the Walt Disney Co., has died. Since 2010, Bates oversaw Disney’s interactions with federal and state government entities and trade associations. He was a 29-year Disney veteran. Prior to working for Disney, Bates served as executive director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) signaled Wednesday that the Senate would not be voting on the House-passed Bill (HR 9051) providing $2,000 COVID-19 relief check — a figure suggested by President Trump — essentially adding the poison pill of Sec. 230 to any vote on such relief, something Democrats signaled they weren’t going to support.

The 2019 Viacom-CBS merger will undergo strict legal scrutiny now that a Delaware Chancery Court judge has allowed a lawsuit to proceed from shareholders who say they were shortchanged in the transaction because of pressure applied by ViacomCBS controlling shareholder Shari Redstone.

Public broadcasters are backing their commercial counterparts’ request that the FCC “clarify” or establish flexibility when it comes to multicast channels, both in ATSC 1.0 and using the new ATSC 3.0 broadcast transmission standard (branded NextGen TV).

This year, TVNewsCheck reported on the deaths of outstanding men and women who shaped television as actors, lawmakers, producers, business people, journalists and on-air personalities. Here’s a look back at some of those influencers.

New FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington has begun staffing up, though all in “acting” roles. According to his office, he has named Tyler Bridegan as acting media adviser, Erion Boone as acting wireless adviser and Jonathan Cannon as acting wireline adviser.

The new year will bring big changes to the Washington broadcast regulation scene, with the inauguration of a new president and installation of a new FCC chair who will make an imprint on the agency with his or her own priorities. And routine regulatory dates and deadlines will continue to fill up a broadcaster’s calendar. So let’s look at what to expect in the world of Washington regulation in the coming month.

Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said that this week the Senate “will begin a process” of bringing the priority of reviewing and potentially revising Section 230 “into focus.” That came in his opening remarks on the Senate floor Tuesday as the Senate prepared to vote Wednesday to override the president’s veto of the National Defense Authorization Act.

President-elect Joe Biden has named a bunch of folks to help him and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris use new tech to communicate, both his own social media accounts and new online venues. They will staff a new White House Office of Digital Strategy. “A reflection of the critical role digital strategy plays in reaching the American people,” the office is billed as a diverse team that will help “amplify and engage” online users.

The FAA on Monday said its long-awaited rules for the drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles, will address security concerns by requiring remote identification technology in most cases to enable their identification from the ground. Previously, small drone operations over people were limited to operations over people who were directly participating in the operation, located under a covered structure, or inside a stationary vehicle — unless operators had obtained a waiver from the FAA.

The U.S. government on Monday appealed a federal judge’s order that blocked the Commerce Department from imposing restrictions on Chinese-owned short video-sharing app TikTok that would have effectively barred its use in the United States.

Full House actor Lori Loughlin was released from the federal lockup in Dublin, California, where she had been serving her sentence for her role in the college admissions bribery scheme, the federal Bureau of Prisons today.

Republican Sen. Thom Tillis (N.C.) is floating a plan to revise copyright enforcement, requiring tech companies to take a more active role in policing their sites for piracy by users.

The massive bill includes $1.4 trillion to fund government agencies through September and contains other end-of-session priorities such as an increase in food stamp benefits.