Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) have reintroduced a bill that would reregulate cable franchise fees.

The Protecting Community Television Act would “clarify” that the 5% cap on a cable franchise fee applies only to monetary “assessments” and not in-kind contributions.

“In 2019, the FCC allowed cable companies to put a price tag on in-kind contributions they provide to communities, including PEG [public, education and government] channels,” said Markey in re-reintroducing the bill. “Under the rule, cable companies can then subtract the ascribed value from the franchising fees that they pay in order to operate. The FCC’s decision has forced local governments across the country to decide between supporting PEG programming and supporting other public services for schools, public safety buildings, and libraries in cable franchise agreements.”

The bill, first introduced in 2020, was reintroduced in December 2021. Given that the House is now controlled by Republicans, who generally oppose the bill, and that it did not pass when Democrats controlled both Houses makes its fate likely to match those of the earlier, unsuccessful, efforts.

The Federal Communications Commission, under then-chair Ajit Pai, and with the backing of NCTA, voted along party lines in 2019 that non-cash, “in-kind’ exactions from cable operators by local franchise authorities as part of their franchise agreements were indeed fees subject to the 5% cap. It also preempted state or local franchise regulations that conflicted with those conclusions and extended its rules to state as well as local franchises.  A federal appeals court upheld that FCC vote.

Also: Dems Seek to Reregulate Cable Franchise Fees

As an example of one of those non-cash exactions that needed to count toward the fee, the court noted, was “a demand by St. Louis that a cable operator contribute 20 percent of its stock to the city.”

Markey and Baldwin hope that a new Congress will give them a new opportunity to “clarify” the rule, or put another way, reverse the rule voted by an FCC majority and upheld by the courts.

Currently, the FCC could not reverse its own rule unless one of its Republican members supported that move, which would be highly unlikely. ■

President Joe Biden is expected Tuesday (March 1) to call for a ban on online ads targeted to children and other measures billed as meant to better protect children online.

That‘s according to the office of Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who has been pushing for those protections, and comes on the same day the House Energy & Commerce Committee is holding its third hearing on holding Big Tech accountable, which includes consideration of a bill that would generally ban certain types of targeted online advertising.

That expectation appeared to be confirmed after the White House announced that Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen was named as a guest in the First Lady's box for the State of the Union speech in which the President is expected to make that call out.

Also: Senators Call on FTC to Protect Kids Online

The caveat is that the president’s speech was being recrafted Tuesday to center more on Russia‘s invasion of Ukraine, according to various reports. The bulk of the speech, though, is still expected to be about “bread and butter” issues, according to CNN, including broadband issues, given the administration's push for closing the digital divide and getting the internet into every home.

According to Markey‘s office, Biden’s address is expected to include a call to Congress to “strengthen privacy protections, ban targeted advertising to children, demand technology companies stop collecting personal data on our children and stop discriminatory algorithmic decision-making for young people.”

That basically tracks with Markey’s proposed update of his Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

Currently, COPPA, which Markey motormanned, prohibits websites from collecting personal information from anyone 12 and under without consent. The new bill, the Children and Teens' Online Privacy Protection Act, would extend that protection to teens 13-15.

It would also create the “eraser button” that Markey has been pushing for years, requiring online companies to allow users to eliminate personal information from a child or teen.

In addition to banning advertising targeted to children (as distinguished from contextual advertising in content targeted to children), the legislative update aslo creates a “digital marketing bill of rights,” which limits the collection of personal information from teens for marketing purposes. And to make sure that the limits are respected, it creates a Youth Privacy and Marketing Division at the Federal Trade Commission.

In addition, the bill would:

1.) Change COPPA’s “actual knowledge” standard to a “constructive knowledge” standard, which means websites “should reasonably know” children are on their sites and they need to get consent to collect data.

2.) Require online companies to explain what personal information is being collected, how it is being used and to disclose their collection policies.

3.) Require that internet-connected devices for kids have robust cybersecurity.

4.) Require manufacturers of connected devices targetd to kids and minors to include on their packaging disclosures of how information is collected, transmitted, retained, used and protected. ■

WASHINGTON — When Sen. Ed Markey. author of the Children’s Television Act and critic of media deregulation, leads a press release by saying he is pleased with an FCC item deregulating KidVid rules, it’s news.

The Massachusetts Democrat was reacting to the Federal Communications Commission’s decision not to eliminate some of the baseline requirements, as it suggested it might, while still giving broadcasters more wiggle room.

Markey was reacting to the release of the commission’s Report and Order allowing additional flexibility in how broadcasters program their mandatory three hours of educational and informational (E/I) children’s programming. The full commission is scheduled to vote on the item, and almost certainly approve it, on July 10.

Markey still had problems with parts of the order, but the fact that he led his comment on the release with, “I am pleased that the FCC is not moving forward with its initial proposal to dismantle the children’s television rules,” was telling, even if it was praise with a faint damn.

The operative phrase in the FCC item was “substantial majority.”

The changes had been billed as modest by the item’s principal architect, Republican commissioner Michael O’Rielly, which was a bit of a course change from the proposal the FCC voted on last June.

At that time, the agency had tentatively concluded that E/I programs no longer must be at least 30 minutes long; that stations with multicast channels could air that E/I programming on a digital subchannel instead of the primary channel; and that those digital subchannels no longer have their own three-hour-per-week E/I requirement.

Instead, the report and order requires broadcasters to continue to air the “substantial majority” of E/I programming in 30-minute, regularly scheduled blocks on their primary channel, while allowing a “limited” amount of programming to be short-form (PSAs and interstitials) and to be aired on a digital subchannel.

The order did eliminate the requirement that free multicast channels also air three hours of E/I programming per week. It also expanded the window in which E/I programming meets the three-hour requirement, from 7 a.m.-10 p.m. to 6 a.m.-10 p.m., and will no longer require broadcasters to reschedule E/I programming pre-empted for a local news or programming special.

O’Rielly himself had suggested the rules might need to go away altogether, given that some scholars thought them to be unconstitutional content-based restrictions on speech. But that fight is being left for another day.

Both O’Rielly and FCC chairman Ajit Pai have talked about needing to deregulate the kids’ rules, given the changes in how children consume video: online, at all hours, in short and long bites and on a proliferation of other outlets, the same arguments being made for other forms of broadcast deregulation.

They also recognized how broadcast-only households over-index for poor and minority kids and the newly-released item makes that point.

Broadcasters took their half a loaf with equanimity. “While NAB believes the record supports even further relief from KidVid rules, we appreciate the flexibility these revised rules will provide to broadcasters to better serve children, parents, and our local communities,” the National Association of Broadcasters said.