FCC

Republicans at the FCC and on Capitol Hill are calling on the agency to be more transparent and allow for greater public interaction. In a blog post last week, Republican FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly pushed for the ability to disclose and discuss items ahead of agency votes.

Stations that own broadcast towers are about to get regulatory relief thanks to a FCC decision that closes the books on a lengthy effort to revise rules governing tower safety and maintenance. At an open meeting Friday, FCC commissioners approved the changes while decrying the long road their predecessors took to get there.

Journalists have been writing nonstop this week about how the resignation of President Richard Nixon — 40 years ago today — changed Washington and the American landscape. Add the media landscape to his legacy list. The FCC’s media ownership rules, which were shaped during the Watergate scandal, are currently under review. The crossownership rule won FCC approval in 1975 after Nixon resigned, but his shadow hovers over the regulation.

Just in time for kickoff, the National Football League is pushing federal regulators to keep a rule on the books that forces cable and satellite companies to black out some games. In the weeks ahead of yesterday’s preseason opener, the league has rushed the FCC with meetings and letters, even bringing out former Steelers star Lynn Swann to aid the public relations push.

The FCC’s July 11, 2014 Order, concluding that clips of video programming shown by broadcasters are required to be captioned when delivered on the Internet, was published in the Federal Register this week. The rule specifically applies when a provider posts a video clip or video programming online that was first aired on television. In its order, the FCC also established a set of deadlines for providing captions based on the type of video clip shown. Here they are.

The commission is fielding comments on whether to require that cable and satellite systems post information about political advertising to the commission’s online database.

The Newspaper Association of America, on behalf of its nearly 2,000 newspapers, has submitted comments to the FCC that urge the repeal of the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership ban that has been in effect since 1975. In its comments, the NAA said the low barrier of entry on the Internet has “created more opportunities for individuals to express their opinions and gather news and information through digital-only news sites, social media and blogs.”

Although there were only three complaints from the more than two million viewers of NBC’s July 4 Miley Cyrus: Bangerz Tour special, the agency is determining if the show violated rules against indecency or profanity.

The FCC is looking to raise revenue — and the agency is in full pitch mode. The FCC is hoping to raise $20 billion by matching the broadcasters who are willing to sell at the lowest prices with the wireless carriers willing to buy at the highest. The spread between becomes the government’s commission check. The problem: the FCC is handicapping itself.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and 51 other lawmakers, including members of the Congressional Black Caucus, are urging the FCC to ensure that upcoming mergers include “enforceable commitments” to boost media ownership, programming, advertising and other opportunities for women and minorities.

Time flies, and more regulatory requirements and comment deadlines in regulatory proceedings are upon us in August. The regular regulatory deadlines include license renewal for TV and LPTV stations in California, and EEO Public Inspection File yearly reports for stations in California, Illinois, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Wisconsin. And there’s more.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is now telling Time Warner Cable CEO Rob Marcus personally that “your actions appear to have created the inability of consumers in the Los Angeles area to watch televised games of the Los Angeles Dodgers.” In a business where finger-pointing is considered the sport of kings, that’s a pretty harsh blow from an industry regulator — it’s not often that an external agency directly apportions blame, but wrangling over costs or no, Wheeler is making an example of TWC in its dispute with the SportsNet LA, the network owned by Dodgers

The Government Accountability Office dinged the FCC in report released Monday for failing to collect enough information to judge TV station joint-operation deals. The commission has “not collected data or completed a review to understand how broadcaster agreements are being used and the potential impacts with respect to its media ownership rules and the corresponding policy goals of competition, localism and diversity,” the GAO says.

A group of Southern California lawmakers wants the FCC to broker a deal to end the bitter standoff between Time Warner Cable and other pay TV providers over distribution of SportsNet LA, the new channel that is home to the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The NAB tells the FCC that weakening exclusivity rules would cost local broadcasters ratings and revenue. The group cites a study showing a stations’ daylong ratings could drop by more than 16% if has to share programming.

The commission says that Sinclair satisfied concerns about the deal violating ownership rules by selling its Harrisburg station and giving up its licenses to stations in Birmingham and Charleston, shifting programming to other stations it already owns. Sinclair will end up with ABC affiliates in six additional market after the $958 million deal is done.

The future of the LPTV and Translator Preservation Act doesn’t look so bright after a leading House Democrat said it “would add unnecessary complexity” to the FCC’s incentive auction next year. “Adopting this bill will create new delay at a time when the auction framework finally appears to be coming together,” Calfornia Rep. Anna Schoo told a House subcommittee.

The chairman blogs: “It’s wonderful that more than 900,000 Americans have expressed their opinions in the first round of Open Internet comments. The commission’s decision to extend until Friday the period for public comments on the Open Internet proceeding reflects both the public’s interest in the topic as well as the antiquated IT capabilities of the agency that have not been able to handle the surge of comments.”

The commission has received hundreds of thousands of comments on a plan that would govern how data is passed along through the Internet. The deadline for the first round of comments was Tuesday, but has been extended to Friday. A second period for so-called reply comments will run until Sept. 10.

Today, the FCC’s latest EAS notice of proposed rulemaking was published in the Federal Register, which means that parties will have 30 days to file comments and an addition 15 days for reply comments. Comments are therefore due on Aug. 14, and reply comments are due on Aug. 29.

Today, the FCC’s Office of Engineering & Technology and the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration released a Joint Public Notice that seeks input on the establishment of a “Model City” program to test advanced wireless spectrum sharing technologies.

The new rules will require captioning of certain online video clips beginning in 2016. The rules apply to video programming distributors that air programming — including broadcasters and cable and satellite distributors — on television and then post clips of that programming on their own website or via their own mobile app.

Last June the FCC released its magnum opus (all 484 pages of it) laying the groundwork for the spectrum incentive auctions that (in the FCC’s fondest imaginings) may occur as early as next year. The FCC’s Report and Order has now been published in the Federal Register. As a result, we now know that the rules adopted by the commission are set to take effect on Sept. 9.

The FCC has released its schedule for the public and the media industry to weigh in on Comcast’s proposed purchase of Time Warner Cable and its complex deal to trade some cable systems with Charter Communications. Comments and petitions seeking to block Comcast’s deals are due on Aug. 25. Comcast will then have until Sept. 23 to respond to those comments. Subsequent replies to Comcast’s response are due on Oct. 8.

Katherine Winfree, Maryland’s chief deputy attorney general, joins the Enforcement Bureau as chief of staff.

The FCC yesterday issued a $2.25 million fine to a set of companies that operated a system that retransmitted TV signals to households in large housing units in the Houston area. The system had paid retransmission consent fees to the TV stations, then stopped doing so, claiming that it was changing so as to operate as a Master Antenna Television System (MATV).

Comcast needs no introduction to the economist whom the FCC tapped Monday to help regulators sort through the cable giant’s plan to buy Time Warner Cable, and AT&T’s for DirecTV: Former FCC Chief Economist William Rogerson, now a professor at Northwestern University, was an important opponent of Comcast’s acquisition of NBCUniversal.

Following up on the request for comments released last September, the FCC has issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking comment on a number of possible changes to its Emergency Alert System rules in the wake of the first-ever national EAS test conducted nearly three years ago.

Today’s the day the FCC rule requiring online records of who paid for political ads takes effect for every TV station in the country.

July brings a number of new regulatory dates for broadcasters — new captioning obligations, online political file for small TV stations, issues programs list and children’s television reports and more.

The commission wants to require captions on all online video clips from TV programs. At July’s planned meeting, it’s expected to vote on increasing accessibility online. But the companies that would have to do the legwork to get the closed captions on online videos are warning the FCC to avoid unreasonable technological demands and timelines.

In the latest FCC report, 41 of the nation’s 1,386 full-power commercial TV stations are owned by racial minorities. The study also breaks out details for women, Hispanics, Asians and whites.

In comments on the commission’s syndicated exclusivity and network non-duplication rules, Cablevision and Charter want the FCC to require broadcasters to offer “reasonable ” and “nondiscriminatory” retransmission consent rates to pay TV operators, “not tied to carriage of any other programming service.” But broadcasters told the FCC that the syndex/non-dupe rules are critical to their businesses. They “inherently promote localism by enhancing the value and protecting the service that local television stations provide to the heart of their communities,” said CBS.

In response to a request by the NAB, the commission has made available the technical data for in its various repacking simulations.

Chairman Tom Wheeler says the commission will provide estimates this summer and will also distribute information to broadcasters explaining why they should consider participating in the auction.

The commission hires investment banker Greenhill & Co. to develop financial analysis and explain to broadcasters why participating in the auction might be in their interest.

Over the past few weeks, we have begun to see how the FCC’s decision in March to curtail the use of joint sales and shared services agreements is impacting the business.Three groups have proposal three different plans to come into compliance with the new rules. Of them, Nexstar’s arrangement with Pluria Marshall is the potential win-win.

In urging the FCC to OK the proposed JSA waivers involving Nexstar and Marshall Broadcasting, the group wants the FCC to subject approval of the deal to annual reporting requirements as well as other conditions. The critical question for NABOB, for this deal and any others, according to the association’s filing: “Is this transaction designed to produce a free-standing, independent broadcast operation at the conclusion of the JSA agreement?”

When the FCC voted at its March 31, 2014 meeting to deem television joint sales agreements involving more than 15% of a station’s weekly advertising time as an attributable ownership interest, it announced that broadcasters that are parties to existing JSAs would have two years to modify or terminate those JSAs to come into compliance. That date, it’s now known, is June 19, 2016.