If The FCC Fines You Once, Don’t Do It Again
The FCC this week issued a Notice of Apparent Liability proposing a $233,000 fine to Cumulus Media for violations of the sponsorship identification rules. The fine illustrates not only how seriously the FCC takes its sponsorship identification rules (particularly in the context of political and issue advertising) but also the how aggressively the FCC can act for even the slightest violation of a consent decree involving a prior violation of its rules.
PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) — A landmark beach bar on the Florida-Alabama state line is suing MTV’s popular “Floribama Shore” show for trademark infringement. Companies that run the Flora-Bama Lounge on […]
Is Your Station Ready For The CCPA?
A judge ruled Wednesday that an investment adviser and former Fox Business commentator who sued NPR over stories about his role in funding a private investigator to probe the death of former Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich can go forward.
Charter execs put on something of a full court press at FCC last week to talk down broadcaster’s ATSC 3.0 transition. They met with staffers in the Media Bureau and Office of Engineering and Technology, as well as aides to four of the five commissioners, including the chairman. “We also discussed the consumer benefits of the ATSC 3.0 transition, noting that broadcasters have yet to define which among those possible uses of the new standard they are interested in pursuing,” Charter said in summarizing the meeting.
“There are no longitudinal studies that show a link between violence and video games,” said Benjamin Burroughs, a professor of emerging media at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “Certainly, there is no linkage to gun violence.” The theory persists in part because politicians on both sides of the aisle have taken it up as an easy target, since it lacks a powerful lobby like, say, the National Rifle Association.
Exclusives
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The longtime composer of “The Simpsons” has sued over his dismissal from the long-running series, saying he was discriminated against because of his age and a […]
Jessell | Court Should Quash Retrans-Killer Locast
How does Locast think it can get away with retransmitting broadcast signals to smartphones and smart TVs without compensating broadcasters? By claiming to be a nonprofit. But I expect that a federal judge will see through that fiction and find that it is nothing more than a front for Dish and AT&T’s DirecTV.
Billionaire Guo Wengui, a fugitive from China who resides in the United States, has filed a defamation lawsuit against WarnerMedia and CNN’s Erin Burnett, saying that a July 23 episode of Erin Burnett OutFront contained false statements about him.
In an Instagram post Sunday, Afton Williamson said that throughout the filming of the ABC show’s pilot, “I experienced racial discrimination/racially charged inappropriate comments from the hair department.”
The FCC has extended the comment period for its request for input on how it could improve its EEO enforcement and compliance. It has set an initial comment date of Aug. 21 and a reply date of Sept. 5. Those dates are now Sept. 20 and Nov. 4.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The network that televises Spanish league soccer games in the U.S. says its games were illegally taken off the air by Comcast Corp. BeIN Sports said Friday […]
National Association of Broadcasters President Gordon Smith said the government should start applying a public interest standard to Google and Facebook and other Big Tech titans. That was in an interview for C-SPAN’s Communicators series.
The FCC says local cable franchising authorities cannot regulate a cable operator’s broadband service and that in-kind services or equipment they require those cable operators to provide must count toward the FCC’s 5% cap on franchise fees. That came in a politically divided 3-2 vote at the FCC’s public meeting today.
Thalia Perez and Michelle Greenstein, both of whom were let go by the company in 2017, have filed a lawsuit alleging age, gender as well as pregnancy discrimination.
“Without the required divestitures, Nexstar’s merger with Tribune threatens significant competitive harm to cable and satellite TV subscribers and small businesses,” said antitrust chief Makan Delrahim. “I am pleased, however, that we have been able to reach a resolution of the division’s concerns, thanks in part to the parties’ commitment to engage in good faith settlement talks from the outset of our investigation.”
FCC Extends EEO Rules Comments Dates
Getting To The Right Number For C-Band
NAB’s Patrick McFadden: “The conventional wisdom in the communications arena is that the United States is engaged in a race to be the first nation to deploy the next generation of wireless technology: 5G. But while many insist on the importance of winning the “Race to 5G,” we somehow can’t quite get out of the starting blocks.”
The broadcasters aim to shut down the digital app service that has attracted tens of thousands of users and is threatening billions of dollars in retransmission contracts.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), one of Silicon Valley’s loudest critics, has proposed legislation banning some online practices he believes cause “addiction.”
August Regulatory Dates For Broadcasters
Once upon a time, August was a quiet month in Washington, when everyone went on vacation. Sure, there are plenty of vacations that will happen this coming month, but it seems that regulatory activity no longer takes a break.
Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.)’s proposed “Stop The Censorship Act” would strip online platforms of the protections of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, if they remove lawful posts by users.
Santiago Garces, Pittsburgh’s director of innovation and performance, fears an FCC vote this week could mean the end to free cable boxes and internet connectivity provided to the city to roughly half of the city’s buidigs for free by Comcast and Verizon.
Dish says it will combine $5 billion in assets being spun off from the Sprint-T-Mobile merger with its own vast reserves of wireless spectrum to compete head-on with AT&T, Verizon and Sprint-T-Mobile. “We’ve been here before,” said Dish CEO Charlie Ergen. “When we entered pay-TV with the launch of our first satellite in 1995, we faced entrenched cable monopolies, and our direct competitor was owned by one of the largest industrial corporations in the world.”
The Modern Television Act of 2019, introduced by Reps. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and Steve Scalise (R-La.), addresses “perennial broadcast TV blackouts” caused by failed retrans negotiations. It contains familiar asks from the pair, including regulation of blackouts and providing for outside arbitration of negotiation impasses. Elements of the legislation could find their way into the legislation renewing the satellite distant-signal license.
In meetings and phone calls with FCC officials, executives of public TV stations and PBS are arguing that public stations be exempt from having to simulcast ATSC 1.0 signals when they make the move to ATSC 3.0. The public stations deserve the waiver, they say, given “the unique mission, structure, governance, finances, history, geographic layout, and regulatory treatment” of educational licensees. Cable operators oppose all exemptions.
The cable operator submitted a proposal to the Justice Department to buy certain assets being spun off by the merger of the two wireless companies, but never heard back from the agency, three sources familiar with the matter said. Instead, Justice opted for a plan to sell the assets to Dish. Justice is expected to greenlight the merger.
Tech companies like Google and Facebook have created great wealth for themselves by harvesting and commercializing the private data that users of their services carelessly leave behind. Now, policymakers and researchers are looking for ways to assign a value to the data and share some of the digital wealth with individuals and society.
As Facebook’s on-going troubles with Justice, the FTC and the SEC vividly illustrate, high tech media will be, from here on out, under constant and deepening scrutiny from policymakers and regulators.
