Free Press

I can almost understand Republican Chairman Ajit Pai’s muted response to Trump’s tweeted threats against NBC’s TV station licenses, but not those of Democratic Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Mignon Clyburn. If what they’ve said so far reflects their passion for protecting media from Trump at the FCC, the networks and their licensed stations may be in a little trouble. 

So far this year, according to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker at least 23 journalists have been arrested merely for trying to do their jobs. More troubling, criminal charges are still pending for more than half of them; at least 12, to be precise.

The net neutrality group Free Press is criticizing the FCC over “misleading information” in its upcoming report on mobile competition. The group says the report omits historical context about mobile carriers’ network investment. “The easily verifiable truth is that wireless industry investments peaked in 2013, as carriers completed the bulk of 4G LTE deployments,” the group wrote to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. 

Free Press and the Free Press Action Fund today launched a campaign to set aside proceeds from the auction of public TV station licenses to strengthen local journalism and community-information projects.

Time Warner Cable was the only major pay TV company to reduce the price of basic cable TV over the past four years, according to a new report. TWC reduced the advertised price of TV service by 2.5% between 2009 and 2013, according to Free Press. Meanwhile, Comcast, which moved in April to buy TWC for $45 billion, raised its advertised basic TV rates by 68% over the same period

After Free Press’s Lauren Wilson suggests in Tweet that FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai’s concern for people of color is insincere, Pai Tweets back that he is proud of his “Indian heritage and I am never going to apologize for standing for what I believe is right.” Wilson then Tweeted an apology. The exchange came in the context of the controversy surrounding FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s plan to ban joint sales agreements, which Free Press supports and Pai opposes.

Public interest watchdog groups held a lobbying session at the FCC earlier this month, making a case for barring joint sales and shared services agreements in which the stations share management or in which one of the stations in the combo sells 15% or more of the advertising time of the other.

A new report from the media watch dog group Free Press accuses the Federal Communications Commission of turning a blind eye toward media consolidation in the television industry. The study — “Cease to Resist: How the FCC’s Failure to Enforce Its Policies Created a New Wave of Media Consolidation” — scrutinizes several major TV station owners including Sinclair Broadcast Group and Nexstar and says they are using “shady tactics” to build “national media empires.”

In joint comments, Free Press, Common Cause, the Institute for Public Representation, the National Hispanic Media Coalition, the Office of Communication of the United Church of Christ Inc., NABET-CWA and The Newspaper Guild-CWA say the FCC should deny the proposed sale because it violates the commission’s newspaper-broadcast crossownership rule or the television duopoly rule.

Free Press President Craig Aaron: “The FCC needs to end this charade. If the agency’s rules don’t allow mergers between these stations, then de facto mergers shouldn’t be allowed either. If that means breaking up a few big media companies along the way and stopping this deal, so be it.”

Free Press CEO Craig Aaron: “Chairman Genachowski’s attempt to overhaul long-standing media ownership limits is little more than a gift-wrapped giveaway to Rupert Murdoch.”

In comments to the FCC, a coalition of advocacy groups long opposed to media consolidation and cable operators say shared services agreements and other contractual deals that stop short of ownership, but let broadcasters operate two or even three stations in a market, need to be eliminated. These virtual duopolies, they say, reduce competition and news coverage while giving stations an unfair advantage in retrans negotiations with cable operators.

A strange-bedfellows coalition of Dish Network; Time Warner Cable; activist group Free Press; the Newspaper Guild; and the American Cable Association which represents small and mid-sized operators have sent a letter to the FCC. They’re united by a concern about TV stations that “cannot lawfully merge under the FCC’s local television rules (but) are nonetheless consolidating their core operations, staff and news production.”

The British phone-hacking affair that has enveloped News Corp. has emboldened American advocacy groups who believe that media companies have become too big and powerful. There are few if any immediate threats to Murdoch’s American portfolio, but the scandal in Britain could influence the FCC review of media ownership rules.

The group says that Newport Television’s demand that it stop using station logos as part of its campaign against virtual duopolies is not a violation of copyright law, but “a clear and outrageous attempt to intimidate Free Press, and to silence commentary on this important issue.”

Free Press filed a petition at the FCC from 150-plus Hawaiians asking it to act on a complaint against Raycom for its operation of three Honolulu TV stations under a shared services agreement. Free Press pointed out Tuesday that Media Council Hawaii had filed the complaint in October 2009 and no action has yet been taken.

The public interest groups say the FCC record is not complete without Comcast programming contracts; the MSO maintains it complied with info requests.