Workers at the Nexstar-owned newspaper The Hill condemned the broadcaster over a Semafor report that Nexstar fired a reporter to appease the Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG). “The Hill sacrificed one of our members to satisfy" President Donald Trump, said a Monday release from The Hill Guild, a workers organization made up of newsroom staff from the paper. “To say we are disappointed is an understatement.”

The FCC’s foreign-sponsored content rules don’t meet the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act and run “headlong into some of the most critical priorities of the Trump Administration,” said NAB in comments filed Monday with the OMB and FCC. The rules and the related information collection “are at odds with recent administration directives to eliminate, modify and stop adopting/approving unlawful, burdensome regulations,” NAB said. The 2024 order for foreign-sponsored content requires standardized certifications from broadcasters and entities leasing programming time on whether a lessee is a foreign governmental entity. “The diligence requirements associated with the foreign sponsorship identification rules and related information collections are precisely the sorts of requirements that the current Administration expects federal agencies to repeal.” OMB should disapprove the rules, or “at least require the Commission to gather more data and develop more accurate estimates in connection with the proposed information collections,” NAB said. The group has also challenged the rule in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, where oral argument in the case took place earlier this month (see 2504070019).

Gray Media wants the full 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to rehear its legal challenge against a $518,283 forfeiture, the company said Monday in a petition for rehearing en banc, citing recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions and the 5th Circuit’s recent ruling against the FCC over a penalty assessed against AT&T (see 2504180021). Last month, the 11th Circuit upheld the FCC’s forfeiture order against Gray over a violation of ownership rules (see 2503070004) but vacated the penalty because the agency didn’t adequately provide notice that the violation was “egregious.”

Bill Owens, the longtime executive producer of CBS’ 60 Minutes, is resigning over what he said is a loss of journalistic independence, according to a New York Times report Tuesday. CBS faces a $10 billion lawsuit from President Donald Trump and an FCC news distortion proceeding (see 2504140044 and 2502050063), both connected to a 60 Minutes interview last fall of former Vice President Kamala Harris. CBS’ parent company, Paramount Global, also needs FCC approval to finalize its $8 billion purchase by Skydance (see 2503210049). In a memo to staff, Owens said it had become clear that he would no longer be allowed to run the show independently as he had been, the NYT story said. Owens had previously said he wouldn’t apologize to Trump as part of any settlement of his suit. Facing a similar suit from Trump, ABC issued a public statement of regret and made a $15 million contribution to the foundation responsible for constructing Trump’s presidential library (see 2412160043). CBS didn’t comment.

The FCC Enforcement Bureau issued a notice of violation Thursday against Bestov Broadcasting for its station WIAC (AM) San Juan, Puerto Rico, for operating at reduced power and with an unauthorized setup. The station is authorized to operate with a directional antenna pattern using a two-tower array, but in June, EB field agents found the station operating with a single tower with a nondirectional pattern and reduced power. Bestov has 20 days to respond to the bureau, said the notice, which appeared in the Daily Digest.

FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez condemned the agency’s investigations of PBS and NPR stations Wednesday in a release detailing her visit to public media broadcaster WHYY in Philadelphia last week. WHYY has PBS and NPR affiliate stations. “Baseless attacks on public media threaten to create a new kind of news desert -- one where communities can’t access the local critical information they need,” Gomez said. “The FCC must prioritize protecting and expanding the public’s access to timely, accurate news, free from political interference.” Regulators' decisions “have real consequences for communities that rely on local news stations for critical information,” she said. The release said the visit is part of Gomez's effort to engage with local broadcasters. “Through these visits, Commissioner Gomez is also drawing attention to how unfounded attacks on public media can disrupt the distribution of local news and emergency information,” it said. The FCC didn’t comment.

President Donald Trump blasted CBS' 60 Minutes in a social media post Sunday over its reporting, repeating his call for CBS to lose its “license” and saying he hopes FCC Chairman Brendan Carr will punish the network. The FCC doesn't license broadcast networks or TV programs. The post also mentioned Trump’s ongoing, private lawsuit against the network.

The FCC Media Bureau has approved another TV deal that involves a top-four duopoly, according to an order in Friday’s Daily Digest. The deal involves Marquee Broadcasting’s proposed purchase from Imagicomm of KIEM-TV Eureka, California (NBC), and low-power KVIQ-LD Eureka (CBS). “The evidence in the record demonstrates that splitting up the two top-four network affiliations would likely lead to a reduction in network programming and local news in the Eureka [designated market area], which would not serve the public interest,” the order said. Although the top-four prohibition historically hasn’t applied to LPTV stations, the FCC’s 2018 quadrennial review order extended it to those stations and multicast streams. Oral argument in the broadcaster legal challenge of that order was held in the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last month (see 2503190064). The bureau approved another top-four deal by Gray Media earlier this year (see 2503120066), and media brokers told us they expect to see an increase in such deals being proposed since the agency now seems more open to them.

The Las Vegas-based NAB Show 2025 saw 55,000 attendees, NAB said in a release Wednesday, the event’s last day. That's roughly 8,000 below NAB's projection of 63,000 and about 6,000 fewer than the 61,000 who attended the 2024 show. The 2023 show was the best attended since the pandemic forced the 2020 and 2021 shows to be canceled, drawing more than 65,000 attendees. The 2019 event, the last before the pandemic, attracted more than 91,000 people. This year, 26% of the attendees were international, and 53% were first-time attendees, NAB said.

A broadcaster accused by the FCC Enforcement Bureau of engaging in a 2010 sham transfer of stations to his niece was assisting her with the day-to-day operations of the stations after the sale in accordance with FCC rules, said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 23-267 from broadcast station owner Antonio Cesar Guel (see 2502250064). “It was quite natural, and completely expected, that [Guel’s niece, Jennifer Juarez] often, and repeatedly, would rely upon Mr. Guel’s past experience in conjunction with the operation of the Stations,” the one filing said. That “does not equate” to impermissible control. In questioning witnesses in the case, the EB repeatedly confused being in charge of day-to-day operations, such as engineering matters, and being in charge of all operations, said Guel’s filing. All the testimony cited by the EB as proof that Guel remained in charge of the stations actually shows only that he was in charge of day-to-day operations -- “an involvement which specifically is permitted under FCC policies and which is not a matter under scrutiny in this proceeding,” the filing said.