Regulation

Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) wants some answers from the FCC about enforcement of her CALM Act legislation that regulates the volume of TV commercials. In a letter to acting FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, Eshoo was looking for satisfaction she suggested she did not get from the former Republican FCC.

The company was responding to a motion filed by Fox that argued that mentions of Smartmatic were part of its reporting on a newsworthy event.

As part of an ongoing suit from three former employees who accuse Charlie Rose of gender discrimination and harassment, the ousted CBS Morning anchor will have to answer questions about other women in the workplace who made similar complaints — even though they’re not involved in this litigation — a New York judge has ruled.

LPTV station group ARK Multicasting has asked the FCC to consider the benefits of datacasting via over-the-air broadcasting when doling out funds for the Emergency Connectivity Fund for educational devices and connections.

He will move to an advisory and advocacy role beginning next year. The former senator has led the broadcasters’ group for more than a decade. He’s being succeeded by NAB’s COO Curtis LeGeyt.

In a letter sent Tuesday to YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, the U.S. House Oversight and Reform subcommittee on economic and consumer policy said YouTube does not do enough to protect kids from material that could harm them. Instead it relies on artificial intelligence and creators’ self-regulation to decide what videos make it on to the platform, according to the letter.

It said the case is moot. There were no noted dissents, but Justice Clarence Thomas wrote separately to say the court at some point will need to examine the power of tech media companies.

Google can let out a huge sigh of relief now that the Supreme Court has saved the tech giant from billions of dollars in damages in a long-lasting lawsuit brought by Oracle over computer code used to build the Android operating system.  As for big movie studios, while a copyright dispute about computer code might not seem like a subject of particular consequence for them, an opinion from Justice Stephen Breyer concluding that Google made fair use of copyrighted material will very likely be discussed for quite some time and be invoked in other contexts. As such, a few lines in particular from today’s opinion could have many in Hollywood quite tense about a future staked on intellectual property.

While antitrust lawsuits and Capitol Hill hearings get headlines, Big Tech’s biggest threat in Washington may come from the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC is gearing up to flex its muscle, by both enforcing current rules and trying to draft new ones. And it may be able do so relatively quickly.

Republicans are basking in the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision upholding a GOP rollback of media ownership restrictions — but now it’s the Democrats’ turn to put their stamp on the policy. The FCC must review its media ownership rules every four years. The latest review, begun in 2018, languished while the legal challenge to the Republican policy was pending. The high court’s decision in FCC v. Prometheus Radio Project frees the now Democratic-led FCC to jumpstart its review process. Both Democratic members have publicly backed more stringent rules that promote minority and women ownership.

If defamation suits, even valid ones, are successful, long-standing First Amendment protections could be weakened; aggrieved subjects of news stories, especially those with deep pockets, may be encouraged to go after media companies of all kinds, not just hyperpartisan ones. And long, expensive court battles could put them out of business.

The United States Supreme Court yesterday released its decision upholding the FCC’s 2017 changes to its ownership rules in the FCC v. Prometheus Radio Project case. The practical result of this decision is that the newspaper-broadcast crossownership prohibition will end. We certainly do not think that any future FCC would try to reinstate the crossownership ban given the current state of the newspaper industry. Also abolished in 2017 and now formally ended are the radio-television crossownership restrictions.

The FCC has released a list of the 300-plus wired and wireless ISPs who have been accepted into its Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB) program, which provides subsidized internet service and devices.

Few rules in the Code of Federal Regulations have as tortured a history as 47 CFR § 73.3555 — the broadcast multiple ownership rules. The subject of court decisions too numerous to count, a brief review of FCC decisions revising (or deciding not to revise) these rules reveals a twisted mass of logic and rationales where parties fiercely argue even as to the very reason for their existence. Today, the Supreme Court released a unanimous decision reversing the Third Circuit’s ruling involving three ownership rules, noting simply that the FCC’s approach had been reasonable, and the fact that it made its decision based on the record before it rather than the record the Third Circuit wished for, was just the way government must function.

ViacomCBS has taken a stance in opposition to the Georgia voting rights law that restricts voting access, making it the first major entertainment media corporation to do so and part of a group of vocal big businesses that include Delta and Coca-Cola. “We unequivocally believe in the importance of all Americans having an equal right to vote and oppose the recent Georgia voting rights law or any effort that impedes the ability to exercise this vital constitutional right,” reads the statement.

In a big victory for broadcasters, the Supreme Court has reversed the Third Circuit’s decision throwing out the FCC’s broadcast deregulation under former FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. Current acting chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel had voted against the deregulatory move.

A U.S. District Court has declined to dismiss Circle City Broadcasting’s (joined by NABOB, the National Association of Black-Owned Broadcasters) amended complaint against Dish Network charging that the satellite operator refused to negotiate for carriage of its TV stations in a nondiscriminatory manner. The court concluded that Circle City had made at least a circumstantial case for intentional discrimination.

After so much turmoil in the last year, stations may be inclined to blow off some steam this year with some big April Fools’ Day stunt. But because of the continuing issues with the pandemic and social tensions throughout the country, a prank that may seem funny to some could trigger concerns with others. While a little fun is OK, remember that the FCC does have a rule against on-air hoaxes.

President Joe Biden has nominated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which is the court of principal jurisdiction over challenges to FCC decisions, like net neutrality and media ownership. She would take the seat of now Attorney General Merrick Garland.