FCC Media Bureau Video Division Chief Barbara Kreisman retires Aug. 1, after 50 years … Nexstar promotes Dan Lanzano to president of national advertising sales, a newly created position … Digital infrastructure firm Equinix names Shane Paladin, ex-Siteimprove, executive vice president and chief customer and revenue officer.
SES said Thursday it had closed on its $3.1 billion acquisition of Intelsat, 15 months after the deal was announced (see 2404300048). FCC approval came last week (see 2507110066). “Today, we’re not just merging two companies -- we’re creating a stronger company, built for the future,” said SES CEO Adel Al-Saleh. SES said the purchase helps it explore potential growth markets such as IoT, direct-to-device communications, inter-satellite data relay, space situational awareness and quantum key distribution.
The FCC has opened a docket, 25-233, on Charter Communications' proposed $34.5 billion purchase of Cox Communications, the Wireline Bureau said Thursday. The cable ISPs filed their application for FCC approval of the change of control earlier this week (see 2507150051).
The International Human Brotherhood of Teamsters, Fuse Media and the Center for American Rights each called for the FCC to impose conditions on Skydance's acquisition of Paramount. The views were expressed in a Tuesday meeting with aides to Commissioner Olivia Trusty, according to a joint filing posted Thursday. The Teamsters said the agency should require CBS stations for the next eight years to have the same number of full-time station employees as it did on July 7, 2024. Fuse Media said New Paramount should be required to set aside a fixed percentage of programming on its streaming platforms for content from “independent content sources.” Along with a requirement that the company recruit “from a wide range of ideological viewpoints,” the Center for American Rights said the FCC should require “increased network carriage of locally produced content from affiliated and owned-and-operated stations.”
Both Antonio Cesar Guel and the FCC Enforcement Bureau have appealed Administrative Law Judge Jane Halprin’s June ruling that Guel must pay a $188,491 penalty -- the maximum allowed for a single violation -- for a sham transfer of multiple broadcast stations to his teenage niece (see 2506160044). The Enforcement Bureau said in a filing posted Thursday in docket 23-267 that FCC precedent dictates that each of the seven stations Guel pretended to sell constitutes a separate violation, and that Guel should have to pay $188,491 for each one. That would total $1,319,437. Guel's filing, posted Thursday, argued that the ALJ improperly set the $188,491 penalty amount and that before requiring a forfeiture the agency was required to issue a notice of apparent liability proposing a $188,491 penalty. An NAL would give Guel the opportunity to submit evidence about his inability to pay the forfeiture amount, his filing said. He also argued that the FCC doesn’t have the authority to issue monetary forfeitures after the U.S. Supreme Court’s SEC v. Jarkesy ruling and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ subsequent ruling striking down the agency’s forfeiture against AT&T. “Under those courts’ rulings, the FCC cannot impose civil penalties upon Mr. Guel without the protections of a trial by jury before a neutral arbitrator,” said the Guel filing. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has maintained that the FCC still has forfeiture authority (see 2504280038)
The FCC should “move expeditiously” to relax broadcast ownership and require a mandatory transition to ATSC 3.0, said NAB CEO Curtis LeGeyt in a meeting Monday with FCC Commissioner Olivia Trusty, according to an ex parte filing posted Thursday in docket 17-318. “Each day that passes without reform further disadvantages broadcasters -- and ultimately the American public -- in a land of unconstrained non-broadcast media giants,” the filing said. Recent objections to NAB’s push for an ATSC 3.0 transition timeline and tuner mandate are “disingenuous and blatantly anticompetitive” and come from “certain players in the ecosystem that are clearly threatened by a competitive free video service available to consumers throughout the nation.” Local broadcasters “are striving to secure a future that is free, local, innovative, and resilient,” the filing said. “But doing so requires timely, forward-looking action from the Commission.”
A letter signed by 44 operators of tolled highway, bridge and tunnel facilities, located in 22 states, urged the FCC to oppose NextNav’s proposal to reconfigure the 902-928 MHz band to allow a “terrestrial complement” to GPS for positioning, navigation and timing services. Tolling interests have led oppositions to NextNav’s proposal (see 2505300044). “The Lower 900 MHz band provides the connectivity between toll collection gantries and over 100 million in-vehicle transponders across the United States,” said the posted Wednesday in docket 24-240 and filed by E-ZPass Group and the International Bridge, Tunnel & Turnpike Association. “Electronic toll collection keeps Americans and commercial goods traveling at highway speeds, reduces congestion, improves transportation efficiencies, and enhances road safety.”
The FCC Wireless Bureau approved GCI Communications’ updated performance plan for mobile services under the agency's Alaska Plan order (see 2507020032). The bureau approved wireless providers’ initial performance plans in 2016, but “throughout the duration of the ten-year Alaska Plan,” it may “require the filing of revised commitments at other times if justified by developments that occur after the approval of the initial performance commitments,” the bureau said in a notice in Thursday’s Daily Digest.
AST SpaceMobile still hasn't made the case for why it should be allowed to not make public information about its proposed supplemental coverage from space operations in the 700 and 800 MHz bands, T-Mobile said (docket 25-201) in a posting Thursday. It said AST is trying to create false equivalencies between its owns SCS plans and disclosures and those of SpaceX. AST criticized T-Mobile for demanding AST coverage map information that it said T-Mobile SCS partner SpaceX did not provide (see 2507080022). T-Mobile said the burden is on AST to show no harmful interference will occur, and that missing information needs to be provided before any FCC action. The docket has seen hundreds of express comments filed this week from people representing amateur radio interests raising concerns about interference from AST's already-approved use of 430-440 MHz.
A 60-day FCC advanced notice requirement for attached midsize orders could slow, rather than speed up, broadband deployments, according to Altice USA. Cable company representatives told the agency that while requiring advanced notice makes sense for larger orders, attachers generally have little advanced notice themselves about midsize orders. Requiring them to provide advanced notice to utilities will delay deployment, Altice told FCC commissioners' offices, said a docket 17-84 filing posted Thursday. The requirement is part of the pole attachment item on the agenda for the commissioners' July 24 open meeting. Altice called the proposed consequences for attachers not providing the 60-day advanced notice for large orders "overly severe." The cable ISP said utilities missing survey and make-ready timelines should be required to refund attachers any prepaid, uncompleted survey or make-ready work.