Regulation

President Trump’s withdrawal of FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly’s nomination isn’t just a breathtaking punishment for a perceived lack of loyalty. It presages a potential  Trump second-term FCC that would advance any of his desires and punish any FCC-regulated company he targets.

The FCC yesterday acted to resolve the proceeding begun a year ago to eliminate the rule that prevented an FM or TV broadcaster from denying space to a competing broadcaster on a broadcast tower that it controls. As expected, that rule was eliminated by an order to become effective when it is published in the Federal Register.

Washington Post editorial: The president’s withdrawal of FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly’s renomination is a message to him, his fellow FCC commissioners and appointees across agencies of what happens when they dare to put the rule of law first, just as the president wants Twitter, and Facebook, and all influential companies on the Internet or off to know how carefully they must tread with him in charge. This is a flagrant assault on the First Amendment under the guise of defending it, and an assault on those who seek to defend the right of free expression.

Michael O’Rielly has done yeoman work as a member of the Federal Communications
Commission, but this week the White House abruptly pulled his renomination for another
five-year term. The decision speaks better of Mr. O’Rielly than of the president.

Less than six months after CBS and Rebel Entertainment Partners settled their long running legal battle over big bucks in missed contractually obliged payments from the two decade and more running show, a new lawsuit is in the docket. Rebel is now suing the former Manhattan family court judge Judy Sheindlin and the ViacomCBS division for more than $5 million over a seemingly sleight of hand $95 million sale of the show’s rich library.

Candidates crowd the field for would-be next agency head. Names floated as could-be FCC chair in a Biden administration include former acting chair Mignon Clyburn, top Comcast exec David Cohen and current commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel.

The social media company says the agency was examining whether it had misused people’s personal information to serve ads.

CBS shareholders are asking a New York federal judge to certify class action in a securities fraud lawsuit that claims ousted CEO Les Moonves misled investors through statements he made about the #MeToo movement before the misconduct allegations against him became public.

The FCC took another significant step in the C-Band reallocation process, releasing its final cost category schedule for relocation expenses of C-Band (3.7-4.2 GHz) satellite licensees. The Public Notice accompanying the cost schedule also established Aug. 31 as the deadline for C-Band earth station licensees to elect whether they wish to receive a lump sum reallocation payment.

The FCC has put out for public comment the Trump Administration’s request that it come up with a regime for regulating social media and other website content to prevent what the president claims is anti-conservative bias.

Comic Bryan Callen is being accused of sexual impropriety by four women.

Amazon has received authorization from the FCC to proceed with Project Kuiper, its initiative to launch a fleet of low-orbiting satellites that would be used to provide broadband internet access to underserved communities in the U.S. With the commission’s green light, Amazon will now be able to begin the deployment of its 3,236 satellites.

Invective flew Wednesday as legislators questioned Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai of Google and Tim Cook of Apple at a hearing of the House Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust. For the last year, that panel has probed the business practices of the Silicon Valley giants with an eye to determining if they need to be regulated more heavily, or even broken up.

The powerful executives sought to defend their companies amid intense grilling by lawmakers on Wednesday. The executives provided bursts of data showing how competitive their markets are, and the value of their innovation and essential services to consumers. But they sometimes struggled to answer pointed questions about their business practices. They also confronted a range of other concerns about alleged political bias, their effect on U.S. democracy and their role in China.

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) has reportedly put a hold on the renomination of Republican FCC commissioner Michael O’Rielly over the senator’s opposition to the FCC’s decision to approve Ligado’s use of satellite spectrum for terrestrial broadband.

On Wednesday, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s Sundar Pichai and Tim Cook of Apple will answer for their companies’ practices before Congress for the first time as a group. Summoned for a House hearing, they’ll raise a hand (remotely) and swear to tell the truth, in the manner of tycoons of Wall Street or the tobacco industry in earlier high-octane televised shamings.

While we are approaching the end of summer in this most unusual year, the regulatory dates keep coming, though perhaps a bit slower than at other times of the year.  One of the big dates that broadcasters should be looking for is the announcement of the annual regulatory fees that will likely be paid sometime in September.

Congress will have to wait a little longer to grill Mark Zuckerberg and other top tech CEOs about their companies’ apparent market dominance. Originally scheduled for Monday, the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee has decided to postpone the hearing so that members of Congress can recognize the memory of Rep. John Lewis who is lying in state at the U.S. Capitol from Monday through Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Michael H. Simon issued an order last Thursday barring federal officers — for at least 14 days, to allow for further legal action — from requiring journalists and legal observers to “disperse”; from threatening or targeting them violently; or from forcing them to move to remote locations, even when officers are justified in ordering demonstrators to leave a particular area or using force.

The nomination of Republican FCC commissioner Michael O’Rielly for a new, five-year, term on the FCC has been favorably reported out of the Senate Commerce Committee and now moves to the full Senate for a vote.

The News Media for Open Government Coalition is renewing its call for passage of a bill to protect journalists. The Journalist Protection Act, which was introduced in a previous Congress, would “make it a federal crime to intentionally cause bodily injury or threaten a journalist in a manner designed to intimidate him or her from gathering or reporting the news.”