Regulation

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A group of women who worked alongside Al Franken on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” have signed a statement of support for the Minnesota senator. Last week, broadcaster […]

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai circulates a draft of a rulemaking to consider retaining, modifying or eliminating the cap that, with the restoration of the UHF discount earlier this year, now enables TV station groups to reach as many as 78% of TV homes. A vote on the proposal is set for Dec. 14.

21st Century Fox has reached a $90 million settlement of shareholder claims arising from the sexual harassment scandal at its Fox News Channel, which cost the jobs of longtime news chief Roger Ailes and anchor Bill O’Reilly.

After actor Anthony Edwards publicly accused producer Gary Goddard of molesting him as a child four decades ago, a second accuser has come forward to corroborate Edwards’ claim and allege that Goddard also attempted to molest him on multiple occasions.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai will reveal plans to his fellow commissioners on Tuesday to fully dismantle the agency’s Obama-era net neutrality regulations, people familiar with the plans said, in a major victory for the telecom industry in the long-running policy debate.

Eight women have told The Washington Post that longtime television host Charlie Rose made unwanted sexual advances toward them, including lewd phone calls, walking around naked in their presence, or groping their breasts, buttocks or genital areas. PBS and Bloomberg immediately suspended distribution of the Charlie Rose show. CBS announced that it was suspending Rose as it looked into the matter.

The Department of Justice is suing to block AT&T’s $85 billion bid for entertainment conglomerate Time Warner, setting the stage for one of the biggest antitrust cases to hit Washington in decades.

The FCC on Thursday issued a Public Notice announcing that, at the end of the day on Nov. 27 the current versions of FCC Forms 323 and 323E will be retired. These forms will be replaced in the near future by a new version of the ownership report in the FCC’s LMS database. If you are currently working on an ownership report following the completion of a purchase of a station or other event triggering the need for such a report, you must file it on the old form by 11:59 ET on Nov. 27, or wait until the new form is available (if that will allow you to comply with the filing deadline for your report).

Nancy Pelosi, Frank Pallone and Mike Doyle tell the commission: “We write to remind the commission that it is prohibited from allowing any single company to own broadcast stations that break the national ownership cap. To comply with the law, the commission is required to order divestitures in any transaction in which a company — including Sinclair Broadcast Group — attempts to acquire stations that reach more than 39% of the national broadcast audience.”

Lindsay Menz spoke to CNN about the senator, whom she claims grabbed her inappropriately in 2010.

Whatever side you’re on in the debate over journalism these days, you’re not going to like some of what I have to say. Let’s start with a basic fact. President Trump is engaged in the most direct, sustained assault on the free press in our history. Since early in the campaign, he has done everything he could to delegitimize the media — attacking us institutionally and individually. And I think his purpose is clear: a concerted campaign to raise doubts over whether we can be trusted when we report critically about his administration.

AT&T is standing behind CNN leader Jeff Zucker in the face of President Trump’s constant criticism of the news channel’s coverage — and as Trump’s Department of Justice now decides whether to allow AT&T to buy CNN parent Time Warner.

With its 3-2 vote yesterday to permit use of ATSC 3.0 on a voluntary basis, the FCC endows broadcasters who adopt the standard unprecedented freedom to determine what businesses they want to be in; what new services they want to provide; and how to go about implementing them. The FCC’s hands-off approach also leaves broadcasters to cope with more uncertainty and risk than they are used to.

AT&T says it hired media lawyer Daniel Petrocelli, whose clients have included President Donald Trump, to defend its acquisition of media and entertainment company Time Warner if the government sues to block the deal.

Broadcasters are free to move to the next-gen television transmission standard that has been in development for more than seven years. They view it as a potential game changer that is designed to enable them to enhance their broadcast abilities to mobile devices and allow them to tap into new business opportunities.

Silver Point Capital sells the license and must-carry rights of the San Francisco indie to Stryker Media 2 as well as a channel sharing agreement.

The agency moves to relax several rules, including eliminating the newspaper-TV station ban, and will now allow a company to own more than one Top 4 station in a market. Critics say the actions will reduce ownership diversity and benefit Sinclair Broadcast Group. JSA also are OK’d.

FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel calls herself an “impatient optimist.” Even in the minority, the Democrat aims to ensure that efforts to deregulate don’t harm consumers.

Broadcaster and model Leeann Tweeden said Thursday that Al Franken “forcibly kissed” and groped her during a USO tour in 2006, two years before the Minnesota Democrat’s election to the U.S. Senate. “You knew exactly what you were doing,” Tweeden wrote in a blog post for KABC-AM Los Angeles, for which she works as a morning news anchor. Tweeden’s blog post included an image of Franken looking into a camera, his hands either over or on Tweeden’s chest as she slept.

NEW YORK (AP) — A judge tightened bail conditions on a South American soccer official charged in the FIFA bribery scandal after prosecutors surprised the courtroom by accusing the defendant […]

Legal woes for Weinstein Co. mounted Wednesday when the company was hit with a class-action lawsuit on behalf of dozens of women accusing co-founder Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault, battery and lewd conduct.

The FCC next month is planning a vote to kill Obama-era rules demanding fair treatment of web traffic and may decide to vacate the regulations altogether, according to people familiar with the plans. The move would reignite a years-long debate that has seen Republicans and broadband providers seeking to eliminate the rules, while Democrats and technology companies support them.

The FCC on Wednesday released an order waiving, at least for this year, the requirement that full-power, Class A and low-power TVs file what has traditionally been known as a Form 317 report by Dec. 1.

21st Century Fox denied a government witness’s allegation that its sports division paid bribes to win television rights for international soccer tournaments.