The FCC’s new direct final rule process doesn’t give enough time and information to the public, provides too much authority to the bureaus, and is of questionable legality, said local governments, public interest groups and civil rights groups in filings in docket 25-133 last week. All the comments objected to the DFR process, rather than specific rules the process is being used to eliminate in orders voted at the FCC’s July (see 2507240055) and August (see 2508070037) meetings.
TV broadcasters are positioning for a wave of deals in anticipation of changes to FCC limits on broadcast ownership, according to broadcasters, media brokers and recent announcements from station groups. Sinclair Broadcast announced in a release Monday that it's evaluating “all value-enhancing opportunities,” and Nexstar and Tegna are reportedly negotiating a possible deal. The rumors are likely an indication of pent-up demand but could also be aimed at mollifying shareholders, said broadcasters and media brokers.
Broadcasters called for the FCC to save their industry by immediately eliminating the national TV ownership cap in comments filed in docket 17-318 by Monday’s deadline. Meanwhile, MVPD groups, labor unions, public interest groups and conservative entities Newsmax and the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) disputed the FCC’s authority to alter the cap and said doing so would hurt localism, retransmission consent rates and journalism.
Upcoming FCC items on revamping emergency alerting and outage reporting are expected to be approved unanimously at Thursday’s open meeting, while a direct final rule item on eliminating broadcast regulations is likely to draw a dissent from FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, industry and FCC officials told us.
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.