FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s plan to investigate agency regulatees over diversity, equity and inclusion programs causes Commissioner Geoffrey Starks “grave concern,” he said in an emailed statement Wednesday. “From what I know, this enforcement action is out of our lane and out of our reach,” Starks said. “I have asked for a briefing to understand the Enforcement Bureau’s theory of the case, the authority relied upon, and any prior precedent.” In a letter Tuesday to Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, Carr said the FCC “will be taking fresh action to ensure that every entity the FCC regulates complies with the civil rights protections enshrined in the Communications Act and the agency’s [equal employment opportunity] rules, including by shutting down any programs that promote invidious forms of DEI discrimination.” Starks pointed out that as a commissioner, Carr excoriated the prior FCC’s digital discrimination proceeding as “a framework that gives the FCC a nearly limitless power to veto private sector decisions.” At the time, Carr said the FCC’s restrictions on digital discrimination were “motivated by an ideology of government control that is not compatible with the fundamental precepts of free market capitalism.” In a post Wednesday on X, he said, “I expect that every entity the FCC regulates will be complying with our civil rights laws.”

Skydance could address the Center for American Rights’ allegations about news distortion at CBS and the deal to purchase the broadcast network by privately agreeing to conditions on the company’s news operations proposed by CAR, the organization's president, Daniel Suhr, said in an interview Tuesday (see 2502110073). Suhr said he was encouraged by Skydance and CBS parent Paramount Global’s response brief stating that they're committed to fair and balanced journalism. “That’s good rhetoric. I just want to make sure it's not simply sentimentality, that there's something concrete to it, and if we can find a way to structure something that's concrete and accountable,” he said. The news distortion complaint and the Skydance merger are “different docket numbers and even different bodies of FCC doctrine,” but CAR’s underlying concerns in both proceedings are the same, Suhr said. “If they can address those concerns, I think that'd be real progress.” CAR, Fuse Media and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters submitted a joint ex parte filing Tuesday supporting one another’s positions and proposing conditions on the deal. CAR’s proposals include increased viewpoint diversity on the New Paramount board, editorial staff located in cities besides New York and Los Angeles, and an oversight board or ombudsman. The Teamsters and Fuse want Skydance to reach collective bargaining agreements with all employees and reserve space on streaming services for independent programmers. There’s precedent for companies reaching private agreements to address regulator concerns in lieu of merger conditions, said David Goodfriend, who represents Fuse and the Teamsters. “We're not trying to kill the deal,” he said. “We're not trying to be obstructionist. We just want to see the deal go through in a way that respects the public interest.”

Conservative group the Center for American Rights has joined with Fuse Media and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in asking the FCC to “avoid rubber-stamping Skydance’s proposed $8 billion acquisition of Paramount Global and hold Skydance accountable for keeping its public interest commitments,” according to a joint ex parte filing Tuesday. CAR President Daniel Suhr and attorney David Goodfriend -- who represents Fuse and the Teamsters -- met with Commissioner Nathan Simington, acting Media Bureau Chief Erin Boone, and aides to Commissioners Geoffrey Starks and Anna Gomez in a call Tuesday. “Each of us filed comments addressing very different issues in this transaction but with the same goal: making sure that Skydance lives up to statements it made to the FCC,” said the filing. CAR and Goodfriend’s clients said they believe Skydance should provide more details to the agency and be held accountable, the filing said. Both groups in the ex parte filing listed possible conditions the FCC should impose on Skydance. CAR, which filed the news distortion complaint against CBS, wants Skydance held to commitments on unbiased news and said the FCC should require more viewpoint diversity on the New Paramount board, editorial staff located in cities besides New York and Los Angeles, and a well-funded oversight board or ombudsman. The Teamsters and Fuse want the agency to require collective bargaining agreements with all employees and reserve programming services on PlutoTV and other streaming platforms for independently owned content providers.

Paramount Global's restrictive trademark on the word "slime" is a Communications Act violation, toy putty and slime maker Mack Toys said Wednesday (24-275). In a 69-page complaint, Mack said that Paramount not letting it advertise its toy slime products using that word undermines the Communications Act's Section 214 requirement that the FCC "ensure non-discriminatory access to communication services." Mack said Paramount's "slime" monopolization "is emblematic of broader anticompetitive practices that harm small businesses." It said the FCC needs to erect structural remedies preventing greater monopolistic behavior if the Paramount/Skydance Media deal is allowed to go through. Mack said requiring Paramount to drop its exclusive rights to the word "would restore fair competition in toy, digital app, and media markets."

Fifty-six million U.S. internet households, 46% of the total, are cord cutters, showing the dominance of streaming video services, Parks Associates said Tuesday. An additional 12% are cord never, it added.

The National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) is sending takedown notices to Spotify to “remove thousands of unlicensed uses of NMPA members’ works” in podcasts on the platform, NMPA said in a news release Tuesday. “Over 2,500 detections of infringement” are covered by the takedown notices, it said. The effort is a continuation of a cease and desist letter NMPA issued in May. “Podcasts are a growing source of revenue for songwriters and publishers, and it is essential that podcasts provide lawfully produced entertainment,” NMPA President David Israelite said in the release. “This is not hard to do, and Spotify knows, and has known, how to fix this problem for their users.” Spotify didn’t comment.

Streaming services are expected to ramp up their spending on content by 6% in 2025, to $95 billion, surpassing commercial broadcasters and becoming the largest funder of content worldwide, Ampere Analysis wrote Tuesday. It said ad-supported and subscription-based services are expected to account for 39% of content spending worldwide this year. U.S. commercial broadcasters are cutting spending in the face of advertising revenue challenges from linear viewing declines, it said, adding that outside the U.S., commercial broadcasters have been more resilient and are expected to maintain their content investment in 2025.

Regional sports network Altitude Sports is back on Comcast's cable channel lineup in Colorado, New Mexico and parts of Kansas and Arizona, Altitude said Tuesday. The agreement between the parties ends a blackout that began in 2019, the same year that Altitude brought an antitrust complaint against Comcast (see 1911180062). The suit was voluntarily dismissed in 2023.

Fox Corp. plans to launch a direct-to-consumer streaming service in 2025, CEO Lachlan Murdoch said during a call with analysts Tuesday. The streaming service will repackage existing Fox content, he said. Fox doesn't want to turn cable viewers into streaming customers, "so our subscriber expectations will be modest, and we're going to price the service accordingly." He said to broaden the reach of the broadcast of Sunday's Super Bowl, Fox will livestream the game on its free, ad-supported Tubi platform. Murdoch said the end of the Venu sports streaming joint venture with Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery (see 2501100002) was a "disappointment, [but] the legal distractions around the business became increasingly difficult to bear."

Linear TV's decline in the U.S. "is irreversible," but it won't disappear all at once, S&P wrote investors Wednesday. Instead, watch for a steady, yearslong process, with the pace of pay TV cord-cutting abating over the next two years due to Charter Communications' video and bundling strategy, S&P said. It said pay TV likely saw a 6.7% subscriber decline in 2024, but 2026 should bring it closer to 5.8%. It predicted that advertising would shrink more quickly than affiliate fees as audience ratings are dropping faster than cord-cutting. It said general entertainment networks are on pace for double-digit audience losses and single-digit price cuts for ad inventory, while sports-focused networks' revenues should fare better -- though they will still slow. Programmers will likely focus on managing their operating costs to keep pace with the shrinking revenues, it said. S&P also identified trends that will likely increase, such as eliminating original content on smaller networks, consolidating operating teams and focusing more on cheaper, unscripted reality shows.