FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez wants to focus on empowering and engaging with underserved consumers and combating media disinformation, she said Tuesday during the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s inaugural Celebrating Latina Excellence event. A news release from her office called it “her first major speech.” Gomez was sworn in Sept. 25. In a news conference after her remarks Tuesday, Gomez said that her most immediate policy goals for the FCC are implementing continued funding for the affordable connectivity program and spectrum auctions authorization, both of which would require congressional action before the agency could act. “I am a firm believer in the power of competition to drive innovation that improves services and lowers prices for consumers,” Gomez said. “But competition only works when the market works”
The Maine legislature’s joint Judiciary Committee is weighing whether a state consumer privacy law should allow a private right of action, exempt small businesses or limit allowed data collection to what is “strictly necessary,” according to a livestreamed work session Monday. Comments on possible provisions for privacy legislation are due Dec. 18, when the committee is expected to have updated draft language on dueling consumer privacy bills: LD-1977, which is similar to the proposed federal American Data Privacy and Protection Act, and LD-1973, which is based on Connecticut’s privacy statute.
An FCC draft report and order slated for commissioners' open meeting Wednesday creating a one-year window allowing certain low-power TV stations to convert to Class A status is expected to receive unanimous approval and perhaps an early vote, agency officials told us. The Class A window would open on the draft order’s effective date. The draft item has attracted little lobbying since it was announced last month, with the most recent filings in the docket (23-126) from June.
An FCC draft order on the 2018 quadrennial review would extend the restriction on owning top-four duopolies to multicast channels and low-power TV stations but wouldn’t alter local radio ownership limits or rules barring major networks from purchasing each other, agency and industry officials said in interviews. The draft QR order, which officials told us runs some 90 pages, uses language that resembles the FCC’s arguments in an enforcement action and ongoing court case against Gray Television involving the company’s top-four combination in Anchorage, FCC and industry officials told us.
Broadcast attorneys don’t expect seismic shifts in the sports betting and cannabis advertising landscapes soon, according to two virtual sessions convened Monday by the Federal Communications Bar Association. FCC guidance on whether broadcasters can advertise recreational marijuana use “would offer some great clarity,” but the likelihood of the agency issuing it while cannabis is classified as an illegal drug “is absolutely zero,” Wilkinson Barker broadcast attorney David O’Connor said. Orrick attorney Behnam Dayanim said, “It’s looking grim, at least in the immediate future” for shifts toward legalizing sports betting in states that haven’t already done so, such as Texas and California. Dayanim represents sports betting company Draft Kings.
Nearly six months into a yearlong effort, members of NAB-led, FCC-involved ATSC 3.0 task force on the Future of TV Initiative (FTI) (see 2306090043) told us it will likely shift to delving into specific issues after spending early meetings covering 3.0 basics. Digital rights management (DRM) and encryption for ATSC 3.0 signals have become an early point of disagreement at working group meetings, but participants we spoke with said the process was largely collegial and praised the task force's diversity. “If we don’t have any tough conversations, we’re not doing it right,” said NAB Associate General Counsel Patrick McFadden, who oversees the task force.
Broadcast TV executives are bullish on the future of retransmission consent but are seeing varying levels of softness in the advertising market, they said on Q3 earnings calls this month. Nexstar and E.W. Scripps have experienced softness in the national advertising market, which Scripps CEO Adam Symson ascribed to macroeconomic headwinds. “We’re seeing no sign -- by region or market -- of any kind of recession,” said Gray Television co-CEO Hilton Howell in Gray’s call last week.
FCC and industry officials don’t expect a 2018 Quadrennial Review vote by the Dec. 27 deadline ordered by the D.C. Circuit (see 2309290056) and the item isn’t expected to be part of the December meeting agenda, they said in interviews this week.
Broadcasters, wireless companies and alerting equipment manufacturers are concerned about the potential costs of increasing cybersecurity regulations on emergency alerting participants and the burden of potentially duplicated reporting requirements across multiple federal agencies, they told the FCC and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Monday at a public roundtable event on alerting cybersecurity. The event included local government public safety agencies, the FBI and cybersecurity companies and featured discussion of potential threats to alerting infrastructure and the need for transparency around cyberattacks alongside potential regulatory burdens. “WEA is a voluntary program,” said CCIA General Counsel Angela Simpson. “There is a straw that will break the proverbial camel’s back at some point.”
NEW YORK -- Regulatory opposition to media consolidation is more religion than policy, the conflict over virtual MVPDs is an existential threat for local news, and 5G broadcast is an inferior technology, said broadcast executives at the NAB Show New York Wednesday during TVNewsCheck’s TV2025: Monetizing the Future Conference. Creating artificial competition in markets that can’t sustain it results in worse newsrooms and poor job conditions for journalists, said Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley. It's “challenging” to see any regulatory relief on media ownership coming from the current FCC administration, he said. “I think it's very difficult from a sustainability standpoint to have four to five or six producers of news in a single market,” said Allen Media CEO Princell Hair.