Regulation

Two Senate Democrats proposed a bill Thursday that would regulate the way online sites display and promote content and ads aimed at children under the age of 16. The Kids Internet Design and Safety (KIDS) Act, introduced by Sens. Richard Blumenthal (l) and Ed Markey, would prohibit operators of platforms aimed at users under 16 from using “auto-play” settings on videos. The measure would also ban those operators encouraging young users by offering them “badges” for playing games, or sending them push alerts.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has not made a decision yet on his planned appearance next month at the National Association of Broadcasters’s NAB Show, according to a source. Pai is still slated for a Q&A with NAB President Gordon Smith at the show, which was still on as of Thursday evening, according to NAB’s coronavirus update page.

The FCC says it will be limiting access to the FCC as a preventative measure in the face of the coronavirus (COVID-19), and will be suspending FCC participation in any large gatherings. According to the commission, anyone who has been in any country in the previous 14 days that is subject to CDC level-three travel warnings will not be allowed to enter FCC facilities. Currently that would exclude recent visitors to China, Iran, Italy and South Korea

Siding with Google, a federal judge has thrown out Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard’s free-speech lawsuit against the tech company over a brief suspension of her advertising account.

PBS has prevailed on its claim that Tavis Smiley breached a morals clause. On Wednesday, a Washington, D.C., jury returned a verdict in favor of the public broadcaster and decided that the former late night talk show host should pay $1.486 million.

The lawsuit concerns two opinion articles that tied the 2016 Trump election campaign to Russia. A week ago, the campaign filed a similar action against The New York Times.

The FCC has granted the market modification petition of WRNN New Rochelle, N.Y. The FCC’s Media Bureau said Monday that WRNN’s market now includes all of the New York DMA, which means the Altice cable system serving Suffolk (N.Y.), Essex (N.J.), Hudson (N.J.), Monmouth (N.J.), Ocean (N.J.), and Union (N.J.) counties must carry the station.

The FCC yesterday released a Public Notice calling for public comment on the state of the communications marketplace so that it can prepare a report to Congress — a report that is required every even-numbered year. The notice calls for comments on the state of competition in various sectors of the communications industry — including audio and video. Comments are due on April 13, with replies due May 13.

The FCC’s decision today to expand the use of so-called “white spaces” TV spectrum for unlicensed wireless broadband drew quite a crowd Friday after a unanimous vote to allow for higher power and taller towers to extend the reach of unlicensed uses.

President Donald Trump attacked Comcast during a White House meeting on empowering African Americans. During a meeting in the Cabinet Room with prominent African American media and sports figures, Trump noted that an NBC News reporter had left the room. “She just left from NBC because it’s owned by Comcast, and they’re the racists,” Trump said, as participants in the meeting clapped.

Former President Barack Obama is sending a cease-and-desist letter to South Carolina TV stations demanding they not air a Republican ad that misuses his words to attack his former vice president, Joe Biden. The Committee to Defend the President super PAC’s ad, which began airing Tuesday as part of a $250,000 media buy, is the latest in a string of Republican efforts designed to torpedo Biden in an effort to keep him from facing President Donald Trump.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has been tapped to receive the Broadcasters Foundation of America’s Lowry Mays Excellence in Broadcasting Award. The award is given to an “individual in broadcasting” whose work “exemplifies innovation, community service, advocacy, and entrepreneurship.”

Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) has been given the Champion of Public Broadcasting award by America’s Public Television Stations at the group’s annual summit in Washington.

As the calendar flips to March, many of us have put our trust in Punxsutawney Phil’s weather forecasting expertise that an early spring is coming.  A surer place to put our trust, however, is in the guarantee that there are always some regulatory dates about which broadcasters should be aware.  While March is a month without with many of the regularly scheduled deadlines for renewals, EEO public file reports or Quarterly Issues Programs lists, there are still plenty of regulatory dates about which you should take notice.

Reps. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) and Brendan F. Boyle (D-Pa.) today announced the formation of the group, which will be a resource to educate members of Congress about broadcast-related issues and the importance of local radio and television stations to Americans. The mission of the caucus will be focused on discussing and solving issues of importance to the broadcast community

In the case, known as Brand X, the court sided with the Federal Communications Commission’s decision not to regulate broadband cable providers, rejecting a federal appeals court ruling that would have required regulation. “Although I authored Brand X, ‘it is never too late to surrender former views to a better considered position,’ ” Thomas wrote, borrowing language from Justice Robert Jackson in 1950. Thomas wrote a dissenting opinion Monday when the court declined to take on a case asking it to overrule the Brand X decision.

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals revives an antitrust case against the cable TV giant while rejecting a test proposed by the Justice Department about when it’s improper for companies to refuse to sell to rivals.

The FCC will be making some big spectrum-related decisions Friday (Feb. 28) at its February public meeting that will affect broadcast and cable operators. The commission is scheduled to vote on freeing up 300 MHz of the 500 MHz C-Band satellite spectrum for next-gen terrestrial wireless, in the process repacking satellite operators and their broadcast and cable clients into smaller space and potentially paying those satellite operators billions to exit the spectrum early.

He was found guilty of criminal sex act for assaulting production assistant Mimi Haleyi at his apartment in 2006 and third-degree rape of a woman in 2013. The jury found him not guilty on the most serious charge, predatory sexual assault, that could have resulted in a life sentence.

The FCC posted more than 300 comments to its record-breaking net neutrality docket in just one day last week. That comes after the commission sought comment on several issues identified by the federal court that upheld the Restoring Internet Freedom Order, which eliminated network neutrality rules and reclassified internet access as an information service.

This week, the FCC reiterated a policy of being very tough on petitions to add communities to television markets to change the stations that are considered to be part of the market for cable and satellite carriage purposes.

Why have the FCC’s decade-long efforts to liberalize the broadcast ownership rules been stymied by two judges and will that continue?

Super Tuesday is less than two weeks away, Michael Bloomberg is spending a king’s ransom on political advertisements, and the FCC is actively engaged in investigating stations’ compliance with the political file rules. Now is the time to make sure your station staff understands the FCC’s political file requirements and implements any required changes in your procedures.