Former Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., the longest-serving member of Congress who played a key role in many pieces of landmark legislation, has died. He was one of broadcasters’ most stalwart defenders in Congress. He pushed to ensure broadcasters were treated fairly in the first DTV transition in 2009 and what would be the second one — the TV station repack — following the incentive auction. NAB CEO Gordon Smith said: “Broadcasters were honored to call Chairman Dingell a friend, and we will never forget his tenacity, good humor and belief in the benefits of free and local radio and television.”
FCC Drops Requirement To Post Licenses
The FCC’s order eliminating the need to post and maintain broadcast licenses at a physical location goes into effect on Friday, Feb. 8, giving broadcasters one less responsibility to worry about.
Commercial litigation attorney Scott B. Wilkens has joined Washington-based Wiley Rein as a partner in the firm’s telecom, media and technology (TMT) practice. His diverse experience includes representing leading broadcast and entertainment companies […]
Washington-area based telecommunications, media, and technology law firm Fletcher, Heald & Hildreth has added Jeffrey A. Mitchell. He brings with him more than two decades of telecommunications experience both in […]
A Warning About E-Cig And Vaping Ads
Broadcasters should be very careful when considering whether to accept e-cigarette or vaping ads, especially on stations having a high percentage of minors or teens in their audience. The FDA has threatened to review the promotional activities of the e-cigarette and vaping industries to evaluate compliance with the law.
Former Michigan Rep. John Dingell, the longest-serving member of Congress in American history, is receiving hospice care, a person familiar with the situation told The Associated Press Wednesday.
Important Dates For Broadcasters In 2019
While the shutdown of the Federal government delayed FCC activities in January, with the government back in business (hopefully for the long term), Broadcast Law Blog has put together a Calendar of Important Dates for Broadcasters for 2019.
It’s putting together an expert team to focus on fighting waste, fraud and abuse in Universal Service Fund programs.
FCC Seeks Comments On Video Description Marketplace
Commercial TV stations affiliated with either ABC, CBS, Fox or NBC and are located in the top 60 television markets are required to provide 50 hours per calendar quarter of video-described primetime or children’s programming, and to provide an additional 37.5 hours of video-described programming per calendar quarter at any time between 6 a.m. and midnight. The FCC wants comments on this requirement for a report to Congress.
The Justice Department has signed off on the sale of 15 TV stations from Evening Post Industries’ (EPI) Cordillera Communications to Scripps for $521 million. That came in an early termination notice Tuesday released by the Federal Trade Commission, which divvies up merger reviews. The notice means that the antitrust review has been ended early with no issues that would cause the deal to be blocked or conditioned.
House Democrats are asking the FCC for documentation about its operations as they prepare to challenge the agency with their newfound oversight powers.
An appeals court has again denied Charter’s effort to dismiss the claim by Byron Allen’s Entertainment Studios that the cable operator’s “refusal” to enter into a carriage contract with the programmer was racially motivated. The case now proceeds to trial unless it is settled beforehand.
Former Democratic FCC commissioner Mignon Clyburn is advising T-Mobile and Sprint on their proposed $26 billion merger as the two companies seek regulatory approval from her former agency. She said that she sees the work as a continuation of her efforts in government to expand internet access to hard-to-reach and overlooked communities.
The FCC will host a daylong symposium on media diversity March 7. It will come a day after minority advocates are meeting in Washington for the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council Broadband & Social Justice Summit in Washington, an event that often features FCC commissioners weighing in on the state of diversity.
A Path To 5G That Makes Sense
The C-Band Alliance’s voluntary, market-based plan to clear 200 MHz for 5G wireless while fully protecting the TV and other current C-band customers. This should be a “no brainer” — private companies using their own capital to clear voluntarily the mid-band spectrum necessary to bring 5G to all Americans and to stay even with China in the race to 5G while protecting existing customers.
Jessell | Who Put The DOJ In Charge of Broadcast Regs?
Lately, the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice headed by Makan Delrahim has been undermining the FCC — and perhaps even Congress — and disrupting the broadcasting business as it struggles to ward off rivals for viewers and ad dollars on multiple fronts. I cannot remember a time when Justice has plunged so deeply into the nitty gritty of the broadcasting advertising marketplace and what kind of local station combinations should be allowed.
Spanish-language network Univision on Friday joined a lawsuit against the Commerce Department’s decision to include a citizenship question on the upcoming 2020 U.S. Census. The media company signed on to a lawsuit pursued in northern California, challenging the Commerce Department’s authority to add a question on citizenship to the census.
KBMT Sports Director Fired After Arrest
Fox and Netflix’s long legal dust-up over the streamer’s snatching of two executives almost three years ago is heating up as the former attempts to get the upcoming trial pushed back and the sparring latter wants to draw Rupert Murdoch’s New Fox and almost every other studio in town into the damning action.
In a filing with the FCC, the station group says it will ask the agency for a waiver of the rule that prohibits common ownership of two top four stations in a market. Nexstar also acknowledges that it will have to exit markets to comply with the commission’s 39% ownership cap. As things now stand, the merger would swell Nexstar’s coverage to 47.1%.
WINK Reporter Arrested For DUI
Christine Calvosa has been the agency’s acting CIO after serving as its deputy CIO for technology and resiliency.
The National Association of Broadcasters continued to lead the industry’s lobbying charge in 2018, spending $14.16 million on lobbying efforts last year, according to an Inside Radio review of disclosure filings. That represented an 8% decline compared to what the NAB allocated to lobbying in 2017. The reports also show the NAB reduced its lobbying spending by 23% from 2016 to 2018.
With another FCC spectrum auction in the books, many broadcasters may be interested in taking stock of the value of their spectrum usage rights and the likelihood that they may have an opportunity to monetize their spectrum sometime in the future. Let’s start with the most recent news and then try to figure out what it means for broadcasters.
Dish Network, which has blacked out several Univision-run channels after failing to reach a new distribution deal with the programmer, has lobbed a lawsuit at Univision claiming that the Spanish-language broadcaster is infringing a batch of patents tied to adaptive bit-rate streaming.
Rep. Doris Matsui of California has been named vice chair of the House Communications Subcommittee. The Subcommittee is chaired by Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.). Matsui has been an active member of the subcommittee, particularly on high-tech issues like the Internet of Things and blockchain, and pushing for strong net neutrality rules.
Net neutrality supporters will get their day in court this week as they challenge the FCC’s repeal of the popular Obama-era internet rules. A panel of federal appeals court judges will hear oral arguments Friday in a lawsuit challenging the FCC’s deregulation of the broadband industry.