The Senate took a wide look and a deep dive into the issues surrounding STELAR renewal Wednesday in a hearing in the Senate Commerce Committee. Cable operators, who want the law renewed, had to be pleased by the first bit of info that surfaced.
Renewing STELAR Will Help Rural Americans
Patricia Jo Boyers: “Smaller pay television providers are under assault from the excessive demands of local TV stations. Congress needs to step in and support legislative reforms that curb the undue price hikes and sudden signal blackouts designed to turn consumers against their traditional pay-TV providers.”
A grand jury in Boston indicted the parents on charges of trying to bribe officials at an organization that receives at least $10,000 in federal funding. In this case, they’re accused of paying to get their children admitted to the University of Southern California.
TV station owners are taking advantage of FCC rules to quietly take over small-town airwaves, but cable and satellite companies are crying foul to regulators. Broadcasters aren’t supposed to own more than one top-rated outlet in any market, but they are snapping up multiple stations anyway in small markets like Parkersburg, W.Va., and Greenville, Miss., as the broadcast TV market is challenged by changes in technology and advertising.
The investigation by a coalition of 47 state attroneys general focuses on whether Facebook’s dominance in the industry may have led to anticompetitive behavior that harms consumers.
The FCC last week released two decisions addressing complaints from public interest groups against several TV stations alleging that the stations had not sufficiently disclosed in their online public files sufficient information about political issue advertising. These decisions will end up making life significantly more difficult for broadcasters running ads from non-candidate groups.
Exclusives
Officials within the DOJ’s antitrust division are looking into Comcast’s announcement last week that it will replace 17 Starz channels in its Xfinity TV package with movie channel Epix amid complaints, including by some U.S. senators, that the move is anticompetitive, sources say.
Three U.S. lawmakers active in tech issues will introduce a bill requiring social networks like Facebook to allow users to pack up their data and go elsewhere, Sen. Mark Warner’s office said in a statement on Tuesday. The senators, Republican Josh Hawley and Democrats Warner and Richard Blumenthal, are introducing the bill at a time when there is growing concern that Facebook, along with Alphabet’s Google, have become so powerful that smaller rivals are unable to lure away their users.
The FCC held a meeting with private equity firm Apollo Global Management this week to ask questions about its agreement to finance New Media Investment’s planned purchase of Gannett Co., the publisher of USA Today, sources say. The FCC is concerned that the $1.8 billion loan Apollo is providing to finance the merger could violate its duopoly laws, sources say.
TV’s gambling bonanza remains on the horizon as states hold back on legalization.
Two state lawmakers are proposing a requirement that any cable company operating in New York offer a local news channel with “news, weather and public affairs programming,” according to a draft of the bill. The programming would have to be independently produced; companies could not simply rebroadcast others’ existing news shows.
Agricultural groups, including those representing farms with dairy cows and beef steer, have told Congress it needs to put the STELAR satellite compulsory license law “out to pasture.”
The Price Point | Archaic STELAR Must Be Allowed To Sunset
Hank Price: “Allowing STELAR to finally die a natural death at the end of this year means the free market system would return, bringing fairness along for good measure. Sunsetting STELAR means DirecTV would no longer have the right to retransmit stations without their permission.
Assault Charges Dropped Against WPRI Anchor
Donald Trump has sent CNN an extraordinary four-page letter that pledges legal action. The president says the cable news outlet is violating the Lanham Act.
The FCC’s repack of 1,000 TV stations into smaller spectrum quarters is almost two-thirds of the way to completion, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai told a Senate oversight hearing audience Thursday (Oct. 17), and has proven to be a smooth transition.
The FCC today voted along party lines to approve the $26 billion merger between T-Mobile and Sprint, meaning the deal has received the full blessing of the U.S. government. But the merger is still facing a significant obstacle as more than a dozen state attorneys general forge ahead in their lawsuit to block the deal.
In new court papers in an ongoing lawsuit, it’s also argued that Judith Sheindlin’s emails with a long-time CBS attorney are protected under attorney-client privilege.
ATLANTA (AP) — Reality television personalities Todd and Julie Chrisley on Tuesday accused a Georgia tax official of abusing his office to pursue “bogus tax evasion claims” against them. The […]
A federal judge in Boston sentenced the Desperate Housewives star last month to 14 days in prison, a $30,000 fine, 250 hours of community service and a year’s probation. She has reported to the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, a low-security prison for women in the San Francisco area.
The “eccentric billionaire” FilmOn and Hologram executive has been sued by multiple women for sexual harassment.
Senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has come out with his plan to “end corporate corruption and greed” and it would include potentially unwinding mergers approved under the Trump Administration. Among the companies Sanders singled out: “Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox has created a conglomerate that controls media in sports, in movie theaters, and on television,” he said.
Fall brings football and retrans renewals. The FCC still has a retrans complaint pending from AT&T, and there’s some hope for congressional action.
Federal Trade Commission Chairman Joe Simons says he intends to name Ian Conner as the new head of the commission’s Competition Bureau. Conner is currently the deputy director of the bureau, a post he has held since September 2017, appointed by then chairman Maureen Ohlhausen as acting director. Conner is formerly a partner in the antitrust and competition group at Kirkland & Ellis.
In New York federal court, Juan Legramandi identifies himself as a homosexual male of Colombian heritage. He says he was hired by the network in January 2017 and ultimately fired after he repeatedly complained about discrimination in the workplace.
With the clock ticking down on the renewal, or sunset, of the STELAR compulsory license, the National Association of Broadcasters bought a Facebook ad flight in key markets pushing for the license’s expiration. And while the ads have not been carrying a “political advertising” disclaimer, NAB said they would going forward.
