Regulation

The Las Vegas Sun filed a new federal lawsuit against the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The civil complaint filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas alleges unfair trade practices. The federal antitrust lawsuit adds to a breach-of-contract complaint filed in state court more than a year ago.

Gray gets the go-ahead to buy the NBC affiliate and operate it with the ABC affiliate it already owns in the South Dakota market. The action, in essence, constitutes a waiver of the FCC’s local ownership rules barring ownership of two stations in small markets and of two top-rated stations (typically network affiliates) in all markets.

The SEC accuses the media analytics firm of overstating revenue by $50 million, making false statements about performance.

Broadcast and cable operators have a few more days to get those checks to the FCC. After only days earlier reminding regulated entities that they needed to get their regulatory fees in by the Sept. 24 deadline, the FCC Monday (Sept. 23) extended that due date to midnight Sept. 27.

The federal court in Philadelphia said the FCC, in eliminating the newspaper-broadcast crossownership rule and relaxing the local TV duopoly rule, failed to ascertain the impact of the action on station ownership by women and minorities. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai blasted the ruling and the court, which has repeatedly blocked ownership dereg: “It’s become quite clear that there is no evidence or reasoning — newspapers going out of business, broadcast radio struggling, broadcast TV facing stiffer competition than ever — that will persuade them to change their minds.”

While most broadcast stations don’t think about the FCC’s political broadcasting rules in odd numbered years, they should — particularly in connection with state and local political offices. Whether the race is for governor or much more locally focused, like elections for state legislatures, school boards or town councils, stations need to be prepared.

A trial begins Monday, Sept. 23, in an unusual lawsuit in which former Davenport, Iowa, city administrator Craig Malin (above) alleges the Quad-City Times newspaper improperly interfered with his employment contract by publishing false and misleading stories and editorials about his official actions. Press freedom advocates say the case is troubling and could undermine First Amendment protections for the news media

The Justice Department’s antitrust division chief, Makan Delrahim, said Tuesday that its probes of “market-leading online platforms” such as Alphabet’s Google were a “priority” that could result in either “law enforcement or policy options as solutions.”

The FCC’s Media Bureau today announced changes to the filing window for submitting Biennial Ownership Reports for commercial and noncommercial stations.  The opening of the filing window will be delayed from Oct. 1 to Nov. 1, and the window will now close on Jan. 31, 2020, rather than the previously-announced deadline of Dec. 1, 2019.

Howard Monderer, a longtime senior attorney with NBC in Washington, died Aug. 14 at Maplewood Park Place senior living community in Bethesda, Md., of a “probable malignant pleura effusion due to melanoma.” He opened NBC’s Washington legal office in 1958, in part as a response to increasing federal regulation of network TV. He was 92.

A class action suit has been filed alleging that AT&T pumped up the sub count for its DirecTV Now streaming service (since rebranded to AT&T TV Now) to mask “serious technical problems due to premature roll-out.”

With its OK following that of the Department of Justice, the commission’s move means Nexstar can close the $6.4 billion deal, which it said it expects to do shortly.

Desperate Housewives star Felicity Huffman was sentenced Friday to 14 days in prison for paying $15,000 to rig her daughter’s SAT scores, tearfully apologizing to the teenager for not trusting her to get into college on her own.

The Second Circuit reverses a federal judge’s ruling with a provocative opinion that concludes Joel and Mary Rich can indeed sue for intentional infliction of emotional distress over how Fox News covered the murder of their son.

Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax filed a $400 million defamation lawsuit today against CBS Corp. and CBS Broadcasting in New York, alleging the network published false statements by two women who have accused him of sexual assault.

The association’s CEO Gordon Smith says: “DirecTV is doing a serious disservice to both its customers and to Congress by running these misleading messages. We urge you to reconsider … and to work with local broadcasters to ensure that all DirecTV customers receive their network programming from local TV affiliates.”

Executives from seven newspaper companies lobbied Capitol Hill this week to urge Congress to pass the “Journalism Competition and Preservation Act,” a bill that fights the dominance of tech companies like Google and Facebook in the digital content business.

Emily Deschanel, David Boreanaz, Barry Josephson and Kathy Reichs take a lucrative settlement after scoring an arbitration award that slammed Fox’s “reprehensible” fraud.

False EAS alerts have typically popped up in commercials as a way of getting jaded viewers’ and listeners’ attention, which makes them challenging to successfully defend. But what happens when the use of the alert tone is not in an ad, like in the case of its inclusion by CBS in an episode of Young Sheldon? The FCC is effectively claiming that CBS falsely yelled “fire” in a crowded theater, which is the well-established exception to First Amendment protections.  CBS, on the other hand, is countering that it only yelled “boogeyman,” and that any reasonable viewer isn’t going to panic, because the public knows the difference between real and fictional things.

The suit by the family-owned conservative cable network alleges that Rachel Maddow’s comments on her July 22 show calling it “paid Russian propaganda” were retaliation after OAN’s president accused Comcast of censorship for refusing to carry the channel. The suit also names MSNBC, its parent and Comcast.

The commission says the fine for an episode of Young Sheldon reinforces its rule that Emergency Alert System tones must only be used for real emergencies and authorized testing.

Following years of federal inaction, the nation’s state attorneys general are initiating sweeping antitrust investigations against Silicon Valley’s largest Big Tech companies, probing whether they undermine rivals and harm consumers. Their latest salvo arrives today, when more than 40 attorneys general are expected to announce their plan to investigate Google, delivering a rare rebuke of the search-and-advertising giant — and its efforts to maintain that dominance — from the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Supreme Court justices will hear arguments Nov. 13 in a $20 billion lawsuit that Comedian and media mogul Byron Allen filed against Comcast, with the outcome also affecting a $10 billion racial discrimination case he has filed against Comcast.