The Department of Justice has deposed officials at Comcast, Time Warner Cable and third-party companies in connection with Comcast's planned buy of TWC, said industry officials involved in the proceeding. Some DOJ officials are leaning toward recommending the deal be blocked, Bloomberg News reported Friday. The DOJ procedure for blocking the transaction would be to file a lawsuit against it, and the depositions would provide evidence for that proceeding. Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., said in a blog on Tech Crunch that the report on DOJ’s leanings showed the “tide is turning” against the deal.
The work of the Downloadable Security Technical Advisory Committee is being derailed by members determined to base aspects of the committee’s downloadable security solution on CableCARD and the AllVid proceeding, pay-TV companies and associations said in an April 10 letter to DSTAC Chair Cheryl Tritt. The committee is in danger of exceeding its congressionally defined mandate, and Tritt should “ensure that the DSTAC does not squander its limited time and resources on such extraneous matters,” said the letter signed by eight DSTAC members including Comcast and Cablevision, and nonmembers such as DirecTV and the American Cable Association.
LAS VEGAS -- Relaxed rules for broadcasters on channel sharing and foreign ownership and hints that the incentive auction may end up with a more broadcaster-friendly pricing scheme were the principal takeaways from FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s speech Wednesday at NAB Show, numerous broadcast industry officials told us. Shortly before his speech, Wheeler circulated draft rules designed to make it easy for broadcasters to channel share, and he’s exploring with Commissioner Michael O’Rielly an initiative to relax rules against foreign ownership, he told the NAB crowd.
LAS VEGAS -- Industry perception that the FCC Enforcement Bureau has become more active and more willing to slap offenders with heavy fines is an outgrowth of process reforms within the bureau, Bureau Chief Travis LeBlanc said during an NAB Show Q&A session Tuesday hosted by former Enforcement Bureau Chief David Solomon. The bureau no longer treats every complaint as a potential case, but focuses on larger matters where it can make the most impact and act quickly, LeBlanc said. “We are thinking beyond just ‘is this a rule violation?’” The bureau’s older methods led to backlog and inaction, he said.
LAS VEGAS -- Despite its large outlay in the AWS-3 auction, AT&T will participate in the 600 MHz auction, said AT&T Vice President Federal Regulatory Joan Marsh at a panel on the TV incentive auction at the NAB Show Monday. “AT&T has never sat out a major auction, we won’t sit out this one,” Marsh said. That affirms predictions by Expanding Opportunities for Broadcasters Coalition Executive Director Preston Padden, who also spoke on the auction at multiple panels Monday.
LAS VEGAS -- The FCC may not prioritize low-power television or TV translators in the post-auction repacking process, Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake said during an LPTV panel at NAB Show. The commission can’t prioritize everything, and “maybe the best answer is not to prioritize any of them,” Lake said. The panel dealt with several plans for helping soften the impact of the incentive auction on LPTV and translators. The FCC very clearly recognizes the value of LPTV and translators,” Lake said, but the commission is bound to consider them secondary services. One LPTV broadcaster summed up the FCC’s view as “tough luck.”
LAS VEGAS -- Broadcasters need to move to the next-generation ATSC 3.0 in order to succeed after the incentive auction, NAB President Gordon Smith said in his keynote at NAB Show Monday. Since a successful incentive auction will leave 80 percent of current full-power stations and only 60 percent of the current broadcast spectrum, TV broadcasters have to learn to “do more with less,” Smith said. A move to ATSC 3.0 would allow them to do so, he told us after the speech. “There’s no question broadcasting will survive after the auction," but moving to ATSC 3.0 "will allow it to thrive,” Smith told us.
An FCC proposal to make effective competition a “rebuttable presumption” for cable systems is endorsed by cable trade groups but opposed by local franchising authorities (LFAs), NAB, Public Knowledge and groups that advocate for public, educational and government (PEG) channels, according to comments in docket 15-53. The FCC overstepped its bounds in trying to apply a provision in the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act Reauthorization (STELAR) intended for small cable systems to all cable systems, opponents of the proposal said. “An automatic, nationwide grant of effective competition to cable operators in thousands of communities would be contrary to congressional intent and against the public interest,” said the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable (MDTC).
In the runup to the NAB Show next week, numerous broadcasters and broadcast attorneys told us there has been little change in the industry’s relationship with the FCC and Chairman Tom Wheeler since the 2014 show, when many expected him to get booed during his speech (see 1404090023). That didn't happen. But the FCC’s actions on joint sales agreements had injected uncertainty into a broadcast transaction process that had been in place for 20 years, said Gray Television Senior Vice President Kevin Latek.
NAB’s planned new headquarters on Washington’s Capital Waterfront in southeast could cost more than $36 million, according to rough estimates from commercial real estate brokers. The planned 120,000 square foot structure will be located on what's considered increasingly desirable real estate, said CBRE Executive Vice President Manny Fitzgerald, who's involved with the transaction. The area around the future HQ is transitioning to a “24/7 neighborhood” with a mix of retail, residential and commercial uses and easy access to Capitol Hill, Fitzgerald said.