Sept. 30 is the deadline for MVPDs with six or more full-time workers to file Form 396-C equal employment opportunity program annual reports, the FCC Enforcement Bureau said Monday.
The FCC shouldn’t take up a proposal to give broadcasters expedited waivers of media ownership rules in exchange for their promises to reduce retransmission consent rates by 50% over three years, said Free State Foundation Senior Fellow Andrew Long in a post Monday. The proposal, from Cincinnati Bell Extended Territories and Hawaiian Telcom Services Co., was filed in the FCC’s “Delete” docket in June. It amounts to “forward-looking, government-imposed pricing mandates” on retransmission consent rates “that could persist for a decade or more,” Long wrote. The proposal would also use administrative contracts that couldn't be reviewed in court and would bind broadcasters and MVPDs, he said. “These so-called voluntary ‘social contracts’ would impose enforceable, multiyear pricing constraints -- effectively, rate regulation -- while circumventing judicial scrutiny.”
Gray Media and E.W. Scripps have agreed to a swap of TV stations that would involve seven stations in five markets and create new duopolies for both companies, said a Gray release Monday. Media brokers told us that a wave of such swaps has been anticipated (see 2505150056) since the FCC signaled in March a new willingness to waive its prohibition against top-four duopolies (see 2503120066). The Media Bureau approved a Sinclair deal involving a top-four waiver last week (see 2507010073).
Former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler slammed current Chairman Brendan Carr’s handling of the Skydance/Paramount deal in an op-ed piece published Saturday by The Guardian. Wheeler said he expects the FCC to cease “slow-walking” the deal after CBS agreed last week to a $16 million settlement in President Donald Trump’s personal lawsuit against the network (see 2507020053). By holding up the deal over a news distortion complaint against CBS, Carr exceeded the FCC’s traditional authority, Wheeler said, adding that the chairman “has not been shy” about using FCC authority to achieve political goals. “It is time to unfurl the ‘Mission Accomplished’ banner at the Federal Communications Commission,” Wheeler wrote. “What was once an independent, policy-based agency has been transformed into a performance-based agency, using any leverage it can discover or invent to further the Trump Maga message.”
Public interest groups, MVPD groups and low-power TV broadcasters opposed to NAB’s petition for a mandatory ATSC 3.0 transition are “protecting their turf” rather than the public interest, said NAB Chief Legal Officer Rick Kaplan in a blog post Monday. Kaplan was responding to a June ex parte filing from the Consumer Technology Association, NCTA, ACA Connects, Public Knowledge, the Advanced Television Alliance and the LPTV Broadcasters Association, which said NAB’s request goes against both the public interest and the Trump administration’s push for deregulation (see 2505090060).
The Foundation for Defense of Democracies urged the FCC on Monday to take additional steps to ensure that devices from Chinese companies aren’t sold in the U.S. The agency’s 2022 order preventing the sale of yet-to-be authorized equipment (see 2211230065) has gaps, the group said in a report posted in docket 21-232.
A draft California Public Utilities Commission resolution would align the state's LifeLine with federal Lifeline rules. The resolution will be considered during the commission's Aug. 14 meeting. If adopted, the California LifeLine's annual renewal process would mirror that of the FCC. The state program would risk losing "approximately $1.4 million annually" in federal funding if the change isn't implemented, the draft said. Updating the process would ensure that "all subscribers, regardless of database match status, are held to a consistent standard."
Top OneNav executives met with FCC Office of Engineering and Technology staff about setting more rigorous standards for enhanced 911 location accuracy, according to a filing posted Monday in docket 25-110. The company advocated for the agency to require that E911 location information be accurate within 20 meters at least 68% of the time. OneNav also discussed its arguments that L5 signals from global navigation satellite systems can help improve horizontal accuracy of caller information (see 2506100044). Among those in the meeting were OneNav CEO Steven Poizner, Chief Technology Officer Paul McBurney and acting FCC Chief Engineer Ira Keltz.
The FCC Enforcement Bureau ordered the Hampton Inn and Suites in Renton, Washington, to explain its alleged improper use of a part 90 signal booster that was found to interfere with 806-817 MHz band communications by the Puget Sound Emergency Radio Network. “Unauthorized or improper operation of signal boosters creates a danger of interference to important radio communications services, including communications of first responders and violates the Commission’s rules and section 301 of the Communications Act,” said a notice in Monday’s Daily Digest.
The Rural Wireless Association and other groups asked the FCC to examine AT&T’s proposed purchase of 700 MHz and 3.45 GHz licenses from UScellular in the broader context of the U.S. wireless market. The groups met virtually with aides to Chairman Brendan Carr and Commissioner Anna Gomez, according to a filing posted Monday in docket 25-150.