The Walt Disney Co. is asking a judge to dismiss or stay a state lawsuit brought by the special district that oversees its Florida property, calling the litigation “moot” given recent actions taken by the state. In a motion filed in Florida state court in Orange County, Disney also said that Florida law requires that the state court sideline the lawsuit until the company’s own federal case against Governor Ron DeSantis is resolved.
Bob Chapek, the former Disney CEO who was abruptly ousted from the company last November, is among a group of executives facing a lawsuit claiming violations of securities law for allegedly providing misleading statements and omissions about Disney+ and its subscriber growth.
Heavy hitters from both sides of the Standard General/Tegna merger debate, including former Democratic FCC and FTC chairs, met with the FCC’s Republican commissioners last week as the companies attempted to get the FCC to give them a thumbs up or thumbs down on the deal ASAP.
What Happens Next For Tegna?
With Standard General’s deal to buy Tegna hanging by a thread, the broadcaster may continue on its pre-deal trajectory or be sold in pieces, analysts say. But the FCC’s glacial review process, which may have been triggered by private equity’s role in the deal, has had a chilling impact on other potential large transactions in the industry. Note: This story is available to TVNewsCheck Premium members only. If you would like to upgrade your free TVNewsCheck membership to Premium now, you can visit your Member Home Page, available when you log in at the very top right corner of the site or in the Stay Connected Box that appears in the right column of virtually every page on the site. If you don’t see Member Home, you will need to click Log In or Subscribe.
Corporate America is closely watching to see whether one of the country’s most powerful companies can face down a threat to its self-governance and free speech.
Exclusives
Broadcasters — including their primary lobby group in Washington and affiliate associations — have told the FCC that if it does not extend its waiver of the requirement to provide oral descriptions of weather radar and other visual emergency information, they may have to cut back on those graphics for everyone.
The suit, brought by a specialist in Russian disinformation, cites parallels with the recently settled Dominion Voting Systems case against Fox.
The Texas bankruptcy court overseeing Diamond Sports Group’s restructuring says the NBA franchise must first try to negotiate a new deal with Sinclair’s regional sports network subsidiary.
Broadcasters have told the FCC that if it does not extend its waiver of the requirement to provide oral descriptions of weather radar and other visual emergency information, they may have to cut back on those graphics for everyone.
The lawsuit, brought by Abby Grossberg, accused the cable network of pressuring her to lie in a deposition. Her lawyers say they intend to refile the case in a different jurisdiction.
The FCC is facing an 11th-hour pressure campaign from civil rights leaders to vote on whether a New York hedge fund’s proposed purchase of a local TV broadcaster should be approved. Standard General, a hedge fund co-founded by Korean-American Soo Kim, wants regulatory approval of its planned $5.4 billion purchase of Tegna, a TV broadcaster with 64 local stations. President Biden’s FCC is caught between two competing agendas within the Democratic Party: Increasing minority ownership of media companies, and preventing consolidated ownership of local TV stations — in this case, at the hands of a hedge fund.
Byron Allen’s company claims McDonald’s has failed to honor its promise to spend 5% of its advertising budget on Black-owned media.
Though Minow remained in the FCC post just two years, he left a permanent stamp on the broadcasting industry through government steps to foster satellite communications, the passage of a law mandating UHF reception on TV sets and his outspoken advocacy for quality in television. He was 97.
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) recently vetoed a bill that would continue funding for the state’s PBS stations, claiming that the national network has been indoctrinating young children with LGBTQ propaganda. During a press conference last week, the Republican lawmaker defended his decision to veto ongoing funding for the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority, the state network of PBS stations.
A New York judge on Wednesday dismissed former President Trump’s lawsuit against The New York Times and several of its reporters over a 2018 article on the former president’s “dubious tax schemes.” Justice Robert Reed dismissed the claims against the Times and its reporters Susanne Craig, David Barstow and Russ Buettner and ordered Trump to pay all attorneys’ fees and other costs associated with the lawsuit.
Meta Platforms violated prior privacy settlements, and as a result should be prohibited from monetizing minors’ data, including the use of it to fuel ad targeting or algorithms, the Federal Trade Commission said Wednesday. “Facebook has repeatedly violated its privacy promises,” Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said. “The company’s recklessness has put young users at risk, and Facebook needs to answer for its failures.”
Sinclair Broadcast Group CEO Chris Ripley and COO Rob Weisbordon on Wednesday said a task force currently being developed by federal regulators and key industry stakeholders will chart a course for the eventual shutdown of broadcast signals using the ATSC 1.0 standard.
The discovery of the text message contributed to a chain of events that ultimately led to Tucker Carlson’s firing.
Lawmakers on Tuesday introduced a revised version of a controversial bill that would regulate how online platforms display content as well as ads to users under age 17, and would also limit how those companies harness minors’ data.
The New York Times and a consortium of media organizations are asking a judge to rule whether Fox News improperly redacted portions of texts and email exchanges that were introduced as evidence in Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit against the network. Dominion and Fox settled the case last month for $787.5 million, in what is believed to be the largest out-of-court payout in a defamation case. But left unaddressed was a legal challenge filed by The Times in January that sought to unseal some of what Fox and Dominion had marked as confidential in their legal filings.
There will now definitely not be any action from the FCC, or its administrative law judge, on Standard General’s acquisition of station group Tegna deal before the plug is expected to be pulled on its financing. That’s because that ALJ Jane Hinckley Halprin has suspended her review “until further notice” after holding a status conference.
The FCC has released its most recent list of broadcast stations that will be audited regarding their compliance with the FCC’s Equal Employment Opportunity rules. Licensees of the audited stations will have to upload their audit responses to their online public inspection files by June 8.
New age restrictions for minors on sites like TikTok and Pornhub could also hinder adults’ access to online services.
Dominion Suit’s Revelations Damage The Entire Fox Brand
It’s not just Fox News that has been battered by the self-inflicted injuries exposed in its $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems. By putting pandering before honest journalism, it has sullied the Fox brand and harmed other journalists far removed from its demagoguery and slanted reporting.
Earlier this week, U.S. Senator Bob Menendez (N.J.) took to the Senate floor to express his concerns over the Federal Communications Commission’s review of the proposed Standard General-Tegna transaction. His is the latest in a chorus of alarm bells sounding over a flawed merger review process that risks undermining both investment in local television stations’ free service to the public and media diversity.
The leadership of the FCC is facing a possible reshuffling as a powerful Democratic senator threatened to hold up a key confirmation if the agency didn’t vote on a stalled cable deal, sources told the New York Post. New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez railed on the Senate floor about the FCC jeopardizing the offer by Soo Kim’s Standard General to buy Tegna, the owner of 64 television stations, “through, in essence, inaction.”
She will provide legal advice and counsel to the senior management team on a broad range of issues involving employment and labor relations, defamation, privacy, media and intellectual property law, litigation and regulatory matters, working along with GMG VP/Co-General Counsel Heidi Schmid Whiting.
Fox News has agreed to give voting technology company Smartmatic additional documents about Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch and other senior corporate executives. Smartmatic is suing the network for $2.7 billion over its airing of 2020 election lies. The agreement was announced Wednesday at a court hearing in Manhattan. New York Supreme Court Judge David Cohen scheduled the hearing after Smartmatic raised concerns about whether Fox was complying with its pretrial obligations to turn over relevant evidence.
