As FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel suggested at a House oversight hearing Wednesday (June 21) that cable video-related regulation provided for in the 1984 and 1992 Cable Acts did not apply to online video providers, at a separate Senate Commerce Committee FCC nomination hearing today (June 22), chair Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) pressed the issue.
Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, who heads the panel that overseas the FCC, said the nomination of Democrat Gigi Sohn to fill the key fifth seat on the commission faced an issue of timing when asked if the Senate would take up the nomination before the end of December. The FCC has been divided 2-2 between Democrats and Republicans since January 2021. “It’s all about the queue of are we doing legislation or are we doing nom(inations) and my sense is right now we’re trying to get the omnibus done,” Cantwell said.
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) has scheduled a second nomination hearing for Democratic FCC nominee Gigi Sohn. The hearing is slated for 10 a.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 9. Ranking member Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), had suggested another hearing was needed.
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), chair of the powerful Senate Commerce Committee, is still looking to hold a confirmation vote for FCC nominee Gigi Sohn sometime soon. Sohn‘s nomination has gotten pushback from Republicans citing her support for Title II-based network neutrality rules and her support of fair-use carveouts from content copyright protections, and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) has said he would put a hold on her nomination before it got to a floor vote.
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) has called on Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan to immediately launch an investigation of “recent revelations and public documentation” that it had misled advertisers and the public in making claims about the “brand safety” and reach of its ads, which she said would violate the FTC’s prohibition on unfair and deceptive practices.
D.C. insiders are on the lookout for FCC nominations after Sen. Maria Cantwell (above) reportedly said last week that she was expecting them to come from the White House.
Exclusives
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) told an audience of broadcasters this week that she was trying to fight the trend of broadcasting workforce losses due to the pandemic and “information age changes” (translation: Big Tech), including by proposing a big government investment in local news.
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), chair of the powerful Senate Commerce Committee, says she is going to push for local broadcast and print media to be considered critical infrastructure that needs preserving. The Biden Administration has been pushing its massive $1.9 trillion American Jobs Plan infrastructure bill. That plan does not address local journalism as critical infrastructure in need of government support, but Cantwell said it should and she will work to try to make that happen.
Democrats Maria Cantwell and Jeanne Shaheen ask FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler to provide an analysis of whether the $1.75 billion and 39-month time frame are adequate for the repack “within 105 days after the completion of the forward portion of the [incentive] auction.”
They want the commission to launch a rulemaking to allow consumers to use set-top boxes of their choice to receive MVPD programming.
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) is criticizing proposals to relax the FCC’s media ownership rules, calling on Chairman Julius Genachowski to have a public vote on the changes at the next commission meeting.
Just How Voluntary Is Senate Spectrum Bill?
The Senate bill authorizing FCC TV spectrum auctions is raising red flags after an amendment was added that makes it unclear that such auctions be entirely voluntary for broadcasters. Another is that the FCC is not required to protect sufficiently those broadcasters that choose to hang on to their spectrum from increased interference and loss of service area.
