Regulation

As expected, Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) has switched places with Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and will head the Senate Commerce Committee’s Communications Subcommittee in the new Congress. Wicker is succeeding Thune as chair of the Commerce Committee — Thune has been named minority whip and the rules prevent him from holding the chairmanship and the “whipping” post, as it were.

As expected, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) has been tapped to head the powerful Senate Commerce Committee, which has primary oversight of communications issues and the FCC. Wicker succeeds Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), who has been named majority whip for the new Congress.

Sumner Redstone has reached a settlement with his former companion Manuela Herzer, ending a three-year legal battle just days before a second trial over his estate plans was set to begin. Herzer will pay Redstone $3.25 million and agrees she has no say in decisions concerning him.

Proving once again that nature abhors a vacuum, we’ve just learned of another bit of fallout for broadcasters from the federal shutdown — scammers are apparently calling broadcast stations pretending to be calling on behalf of the FCC and seeking to collect “FCC fees” over the telephone.  The first of these calls that we heard about occurred within six hours of the FCC shutting down.

No, CBS and Viacom won’t merge (but Verizon will be a buyer), Netflix growth will slow as Disney goes OTT, a tech giant will gobble up a major studio, Sean Hannity will leave Fox News and more bold forecasts.

Eventually, Congress or the White House is going to cave and the FCC will be back to its old self. That’s too bad. Wouldn’t it be nice if the shutdown of some pointless and counterproductive broadcast regulations were permanent?

Co-opting the “clean up Washington” mantra of the current Republican President and the “by the people, for the people” language of a former Republican President, House Democrats on Friday officially unveiled their first bill of the new session, the For the People Act (H.R. 1), which would, among many other things, boost campaign ad disclosures on TV and extend them to paid online ads.

For the second year in a row, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has pulled out of his appearance at the Consumer Technology Association’s CES in Las Vegas next week. Pai was to have been interviewed in a “Fireside Chat” with CES President Gary Shapiro, which has become something of a tradition. But Pai’s office said the government shutdown — and uncertainty about how long it would last — precipitated the decision.

After holds from Democrats that were lifted late last year, the Senate has confirmed FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr to a full, five-year term and has confirmed Democrat Geoffrey Starks to the open seat. Both had already been approved by the Senate Commerce Committee, Starks in June and Carr a year ago this month for his current hitch filling out an unexpired term.

NBC/Telemundo has agreed to pay $495,000 to settle an FCC investigation into whether it fulfilled its children’s TV programming obligation — in several instances, it didn’t. (The amount of the settlement was initially incorrectly reported as in the millions of dollars).

If the partial government shutdown continues through Thursday (Jan. 3), which appears likely, the FCC will shut down most operations midday Thursday. Employees will have about four hours to complete “an orderly shutdown.” One thing not affected, the FCC says, is the resumption of the 28 GHz spectrum auction.

TVNewsCheck’s prescient editor, Harry Jessell, asks his infallible Magic 8-Ball to reveal how 2019 will unfold for various aspects of the television business, including core advertising, political advertising, retrans, mergers, FCC ownership caps, Big-4 duopolies and ATSC 3.0. He then expounds on the answers since, while all-knowing, the 8-Ball is notoriously terse.

A long-awaited federal probe into Facebook will be hamstrung when the agency conducting the investigation runs out of funding on Friday, according to former government officials. The investigation into Facebook’s conduct — and whether its handling of user data violated a 2011 consent order with the Federal Trade Commission — has stretched on for months. But now the government shutdown threatens to prolong the FTC’s investigation, even as Facebook’s mounting scandals have prompted calls for a swift and decisive response from the agency.

The Department of Justice has decided against ramping up an investigation into Comcast’s seven-year-old acquisition of NBCUniversal — despite President Trump recently doubling down on his criticism of the tie-up as anticompetitive.

With The Apprentice, the TV producer mythologized Trump — then a floundering D-lister — as the ultimate titan, paving his way to the Presidency.

As broadcasters look ahead to 2019, pondering both the knowns and unknowns of the coming year, they can at least recount with the confidence of hindsight what FCC rule changes 2018 dropped into their regulatory stocking, right?  Perhaps not.  In a year when deregulatory changes were announced at a steady pace, some broadcasters have become confused as to whether a particular rule change was just proposed, voted on, or has actually gone into effect.

Time’s run out for net neutrality supporters hoping to restore Obama-era regulations using a legislative loophole, but the fight’s far from over as it heads to federal appeals court.