FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has opened an investigation into Comcast NBCUniversal’s relationship with its affiliates, days after President Donald Trump targeted the network in a social media post. Carr told Comcast in a letter Tuesday that the Media Bureau will scrutinize its affiliation agreements for restrictions on streaming negotiations or competing for local sports rights, as well as terms that could “unduly inhibit” local broadcast station programming decisions.
A disciplinary complaint filed Monday with the entity that investigates D.C. Bar members for professional misconduct is unlikely to lead to proceedings against FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, legal ethics scholars told us.
A U.S. Supreme Court case brought in part by Vice President JD Vance and granted certiorari last month could have big implications for broadcast political ads, but campaign finance groups, broadcast industry officials and analysts aren’t sure whether they will be positive or negative. “I've heard it both ways,” said Wilkinson Barker broadcast attorney David Oxenford.
Lawmakers and others are accusing the FCC of being involved in corruption and seeking to chill free speech after the agency’s approval of Skydance's $8 billion purchase of Paramount Global and the commission's retention of an open news distortion proceeding against CBS.
An FCC order couched as being about deleting outdated rules but outlining a new agency process that does away with notice-and-comment drew Anna Gomez’s first dissent as a commissioner. The direct final rule (DFR) order was approved at the agency’s open meeting Thursday over her objections, 2-1. The commissioners also approved items on auctioning AWS-3 spectrum, georouting 988 texts, and slamming rules. “The way we do things matters,” Gomez said. “The fact that the process adopted today effectively evades review by an informed public is a feature not a bug.”
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the FCC’s top-four prohibition and its extension to low-power TV stations and multicast streams but upheld the agency’s other broadcast ownership rules in a unanimous three-judge decision Wednesday on the 2018 quadrennial review.
President Donald Trump said in a post Tuesday that his settlement with Paramount over a 60 Minutes interview has been paid and includes $20 million in ads, public service announcements and programming, on top of the $16 million donation to his presidential library that Paramount previously announced (see 2507020053). The company had denied that the settlement included PSAs or any payout beyond the $16 million, and it appeared to reaffirm that denial Tuesday.
Pearl TV pushed back on critics of ATSC 3.0’s use of encryption in an FCC filing Friday that said a popular DVR “gateway” device is blocked from receiving 3.0 broadcasts because it incorporates tech from Chinese company Huawei. Pearl’s claims about the HDHomeRun are “false,” said Nick Kelsey, president of SiliconDust, which makes the device. “We have zero association with the Chinese government. Proudly designed and developed in the United States of America.”
An FCC draft order on the July 24 open meeting agenda that would give the bureaus authority to delete FCC rules without seeking notice and comment is drawing warnings from public interest groups, but communications industry officials told us they aren’t concerned. The agency has also recently skipped notice and comment while shifting the language of existing rules.
NPR’s lawsuit challenging the White House executive order against it and PBS (see 2505270047) should be dismissed because CPB hasn’t cut off funding, the Trump administration said in filings Saturday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.