X CEO Linda Yaccarino has resisted what Forbes labeled over the weekend a “groundswell of leading advertising executives” urging her to resign in the wake of antisemitic tweets by her boss, Elon Musk, and has reportedly doubled down on the company by enlisting her son in a desperate gambit to secure political advertising revenue. 

According to Semafor, Yaccarino's adult son, Matt Madrazo, is leading a “two-person” team attempting to rebuild a political advertising revenue stream that was abandoned by the erstwhile Twitter several years ago. Madrazo’s sparsely filled out LinkedIn page lists him as the “lead client partner” for X.

News site Semafor’s scoop indicates tough early going for Madrazo and his team partner in securing interest from Democrats. 

The news about Madrazo comes amid an active Monday for X, during which embattled owner Elon Musk made good on hyperbolic threats made over the weekend to sue nonprofit watchdog organization Media Matters. (You can read the suit here.)

The controversial Musk drew perhaps his biggest fireball of public backlash yet when he agreed to an antisemitic tweet on Nov. 15. 

Since that time, major advertisers including Apple, Disney, IBM, Comcast, Lionsgate and Paramount fled the platform. 

Although they didn't offer their reasons, Musk targeted Media Matters, claiming the platform falsely influenced these big sponsors to pull their support. 

“Defendant Media Matters for America is a self-proclaimed media watchdog that decided it would not let the truth get in the way of a story it wanted to publish about X Corp,” reads the suit, which was filed in a Texas court. 

Responded Media Matters president Angelo Carusone: “Far from the free speech advocate he claims to be, Musk is a bully who threatens meritless lawsuits in an attempt to silence reporting that he even confirmed is accurate. Musk admitted the ads at issue ran alongside the pro-Nazi content we identified.”

With X’s revenue support collapsing, Yaccarino was back in X’s San Francisco headquarters Monday, urging her team to think of new ways and means of generating revenue. 

Far from stepping aside, Yaccarino tweeted what seemed like a renewal of vows to X and Musk. 

Musk's polarizing behavior, meanwhile, threatens not just the vastly devalued but now privately owned X, but also publicly traded companies led by the billionaire, notably Tesla.

Investors remain concerned. 

"I've never had this with any company I've ever invested in ever in my life where the CEO of the company himself does so many detrimental things that [are] destroying the brand," said Ross Gerber, head of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth and Investment Management, to Yahoo Finance. 

The two-hour documentary Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover premieres on PBS October 10. The film is a Frontline production. 

Musk’s acquisition of the social-media giant, now called X, happened in October 2022. 

“At a time of intense polarization in the U.S. and worldwide, the move placed the richest man in the world in charge of one of the world’s most important platforms for news and political debate — and also put Musk squarely at the center of an ongoing debate about the limits of free speech and the spread of lies online,” said Frontline. 

The film looks at what it calls Musk’s political transformation during Covid, and Twitter’s challenges in dealing with misinformation on the platform. 

Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover is a Frontline production with Left/Right Docs. James Jacoby directs, and wrote and produced the project with Anya Bourg. 

“Packed with remarkable interviews and firsthand accounts from Musk’s former colleagues, journalists, authors, and academics, it’s a gripping portrait of one of the most influential men and mediums in modern history,” Frontline said. 

The film is on PBS stations and Frontline’s YouTube channel October 10, and will also stream on PBS.org and the PBS app. 

PBS calls Frontline “a trusted source of journalism presenting news documentaries on today’s public affairs.” The editor-in-chief and executive producer of Frontline is Raney Aronson-Rath.

In a company blog post yesterday, Elon Musk’s great social media experiment, X, (recently rebranded from Twitter), revealed that it is launching a lawsuit against online hate research group Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), alleging that the group has been “encouraging advertisers to pause investment on the platform” based on false and misleading claims.

“X is a free public service funded largely by advertisers,“ the company writes. “Through the CCDH's scare campaign and its ongoing pressure on brands to prevent the public’s access to free expression, the CCDH is actively working to prevent public dialogue.” 

Political firebrand Musk acquired the company last October promising to loosen the social media platform’s content moderation policies, which have evolved immensely over the past few years with the advent of Qanon, vaccine denial and unfounded claims of 2020 election fraud. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic the company was forced to deal with a host of anti-vax conspiracy theories that spread rapidly through the platform, posing a serious public health risk and putting Twitter in an uncomfortable public spotlight. This along with a host of even more malevolent online activity, led to numerous radical voices being banned from the platform, including a former president.

Since acquiring Twitter, Musk has reinstated many of those accounts and slashed employee headcount in the content moderation area.

The result, as any marketing exec could have predicted, has been an exodus of big-name advertisers who don’t want their marketing messages displayed alongside potentially harmful content. Musk recently lamented that advertising is down 50% since he took the helm.

While Musk and his new CEO Linda Yaccarino recently touted steps the company has taken to give advertisers more control over where their ads are placed, a recent Bloomberg article cites CCHD director of research president Callum Hood saying that “Musk is not keeping his promises to advertisers, and their ads are appearing next to really harmful content.”

Hood claimed that during the first three months of Musk’s tenure, the rate of racial slurs against Black Americans tripled, while slurs against the LGBTQ+ community were up 119%. Hood said that he based his research on social-media analysis tool Brandwatch.

In its lawsuit, X alleges that “CCDH gained access to X's data without Brandwatch’s authorization, and that the purported CCDH ‘research’ cited in a Bloomberg article ‘contained metrics used out of context to make unsubstantiated assertions about X (formerly Twitter).’ ”

A lawyer for the CCDH responded to the claims with some teeth, saying: “If [X does] file suit, please be advised that CCDH intends to seek immediate discovery regarding hate speech and misinformation on the Twitter platform; Twitter’s policies and practices relating to these issues; and Twitter’s advertising revenue.”

A copy of X’s legal filing with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California is available here.

LInda Yaccarino, chairman of NBCUniversal global advertising sales and partnerships, is reportedly in discussions to become CEO of Twitter.

Elon Musk, who bought Twitter for $44 billion last year, tweeted that he was expected to announce that he had a new CEO. “She will be starting in about six weeks,” he said.

NBCU executives did not return requests for comment.

Since acquiring Twitter, Musk has loosened the rules around regulating content on the site, which has scared off many major advertisers. Yaccarino would be well qualified to win some of those advertisers back.

Also Read: B+C Hall of Fame Profile: Linda Yaccarino (2018)

Yaccarino is expected to be on the stage at Radio City Music Hall Monday when NBCU kicks off the broadcast networks traditional upfront week in New York

She recently sealed a deal giving Twitter content from NBCU’s coverage of the 2024 Paris Olympics. She also recently interviewed Musk at an advertising conference in April.

Last month NBCU CEO Jeff Shell was dismissed by parent company Comcast. Shell admitted to having an inappropriate relationship with a CNBC anchor. Comcast named its president, Michael Cavanagh, to oversee NBCU.

Comcast also said in its fourth-quarter earnings report that NBCU domestic advertising revenues had dropped 38.8%, or 6.1% excluding last year’s Super Bowl and Olympic ad sales.

At NBCU, Yaccarino has been a leader in making TV advertising more like digital advertising, creating products that target consumers using data and automating media buying. 

In his Tweet, Musk said that once a new CEO is in place, he will transition to being executive chair and chief technology officer, overseeing product, software and systems operations.

Even though he was stripped by of his prime-time on-air duties and told to leave the building two weeks ago, Tucker Carlson remains under contract at Fox News until 2025 and is still subject to non-compete clauses in the realm of conservative media. 

Still, on Tuesday, Carlson took to Twitter, announcing a new show for the social media platform that he described as "a new version of the show we've been doing for the last six and a half years." 

In the video post, that was accompanied by the simple text declaration, "We're back," Carlson didn't reveal any other key details, including start date for the new show. But as The New York Times suggested, the mere existence of the post may have breached Carlson's Fox contract. 

In fact, the announcement itself seems to indicate that negotiations to end the contract with Fox aren't going very well. 

According to Axios, Carlson's lawyers sent a letter to Fox, accusing the media company itself of fraud and breach of contract before he took to Twitter Tuesday. 

Fox hasn't commented. 

Responding to Carlson's post, Twitter's new owner, the also very polarizing Elon Musk, said, "I also want to be clear that we have not signed a deal of any kind whatsoever. Tucker is subject to the same rules & rewards of all content creators."

Musk, meanwhile, seemed to indicate that Carlson will be functioning within for-profit content creator monetization models that have yet to be revealed by Twitter. 

"Rewards means subscriptions and advertising revenue share (coming soon), which is a function of how many people subscribe and the advertising views associated with the content," Musk added. 

Whether Carlson is using the announcement as a negotiating ploy with Fox, or he thinks he's found a workaround to his contract situation, remains to be seen. 

Those on the far right, including Musk, touted Carlson's allegiance with Twitter as yet another free-speech win for the embattled social platform.

Serving our own strident mandate of both-sides journalism, we'll also include a statement from progressive non-profit watchdog Media Matters:

“There is no shortage of flaccid hate peddlers on the internet, and on Elon Musk’s toxic Twitter, Tucker Carlson is now just another one of them," said Angelo Carusone, president of the org. 

"... Be warned," Carusone added. "Elon Musk is continuing to double down on making Twitter a supercharged engine of radicalization. Any brands still partnering with Twitter, or using the platform to reach consumers, should be increasingly worried about what they are funding. Put another way, get out now before you become the advertising equivalent of Tucker’s new MyPillow.”

The House Energy & Commerce Committee voted 28-23 along party lines not to recommend a Republican-backed resolution of inquiry to the full House. The resolution called out the Biden administration for alleged coordination with social media companies to censor speech and sought documents related to that alleged effort.

But while the resolution failed, it signaled what Republicans could be focusing on when they take over House chairmanships next month.

In what was likely the last committee gathering and action in this Congress, and before Republicans take over with pledges of vigorous oversight and investigation of the administration and Big Tech, committee chairman Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) called it an out-of-touch, frivolous and partisan inquiry that was in contrast to the committee’s productive work that preceded it.

The resolution was driven in part by new Twitter owner Elon Musk’s release of internal documents he claims support allegations of shadow-banning conservatives.

Committee ranking member Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) countered that the inquiry was necessary and about “putting people before politics.” She said for years Big Tech had been flagging, suppressing and “outright banning conservatives on their platforms.”

She said Big Tech had denied accusations of such conduct, including before the committee. “Now, thanks to the recent Twitter files, we know that they were not being honest.” She said the documents showed that Twitter executives were shadow-banning conservatives despite then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s claims to the contrary.

Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) called the effort misguided and a poor use of the committee's time. ▪️

Senate Democrats are massing along a new front in the war with Big Tech and Elon Musk is in the line of fire.

A powerful group of senators led by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) has asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate potential consumer-protection laws by Twitter, which Musk has just bought.

“We write regarding Twitter’s serious, willful disregard for the safety and security of its users, and encourage the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate any breach of Twitter’s consent decree or other violations of our consumer protection laws,” they wrote in a letter to FTC chair Lina Khan.

Also: Groups Turn Up Heat on Twitter Advertisers

Khan herself has been a big critic of Big Tech, so they are in some sense preaching to the choir.

Musk has only been running the company for a few weeks, but the senators say his actions have “undermined the integrity and safety of the platform,” including by announcing new features “despite clear warnings those changes would be abused for fraud, scams, and dangerous impersonation.” Most notably was Musk's rollout — since rolled back — of Twitter Blue and the ability for users to buy blue verification check marks that allowed them to impersonate others.

Also: Twitter Chief Elon Musk Slams ‘Media Elite’

One of those already impersonated, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), has already called on Musk to answer a raft of questions about how he is operating the company.

Markey was among those calling Thursday (November 17) for the FTC investigation.

Back in May, Twitter agreed to pay $150 million to settle allegations it had violated a 2011 consent decree by using its users’ email addresses and phone numbers for marketing purposes after promising not to. ▪️

Taking a page from former President Donald Trump, new Twitter CEO Elon Musk is using the social media platform to attack the media.

In a pair of tweets Friday (Nov. 11), Musk said: “As Twitter pursues the goal of elevating citizen journalism, media elite will try everything to stop that from happening.”

Musk has gotten plenty of criticism in the mainstream media after firing thousands of employees, echoing conspiracy theories and making — then, in some cases, rescinding — moves his critics see as allowing for more extreme and deceptive speech without sufficient moderation and oversight, given the dramatic staff cuts. Musk has pitched the moves as better advancing and protecting free speech and trying to better monetize the platform.

Also: Free Press Pushes for Twitter Ad Boycott

In an accompanying tweet, Musk argued that the mainstream media will still “thrive” alongside this citizen journalism, but it will “disrupt” their “oligopoly on information.”

There were reports Sunday (November 13) that Musk had laid off thousands more contractors over the weekend.

Musk has warned that Twitter would “will do lots of dumb things in coming months,” keeping what works and changing what doesn’t.

One of the things that didn't work, and was changed, was allowing subs to buy one of the blue checks that are used to verify accounts. That led to a number of “impersonation” accounts, including a reporter from The Washington Post who impersonated Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) for a story about selling those blue checks.

An unhappy Markey responded with a request for a bunch of information from Musk. ▪️

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) wrote new Twitter chief Elon Musk seeking some answers after a Washington Post reporter was able to get the @realedmarkey Twitter handle and pay $8 for a blue verification checkmark, saying a new — though short-lived — company practice under Musk is "dangerous and unacceptable" and suggests larger problems with Musk's takeover of the powerful social media site.

The account was verified because it's “notable person in government," said Markey, even though it was the reporter.

Buying such marks is a new Musk effort to make more money for the site.

Markey said that "apparent need for cash" has led to lax verification practices that suggest "anyone could pay $8.00 and impersonate someone on your platform."

Markey says Musk needs to explain how it will prevent a repeat of such impersonation.

Also: Free Press Pushes for Twitter Ad Boycott

He also slammed what he called Musk's "rapid and haphazard imposition of platform changes, removal of safeguards against disinformation and firing of large numbers of Twitter employees," which he said had powered Twitter's descent into the "Wild West of social media."

Markey said that despite Twitter ending the pay-for-verification checkmark move following the Post article, which was about a proliferation of impersonation accounts, there are questions that need answering, including whether there are any plans to reintroduce a verification system and how a reporter was able to get the fake account.

Also: Musk Signals Longer-Form Tweets

The Post was also reporting that the Federal Trade Commission has pledged to keep its eye on Twitter to make sure that the firings and resignations of high-profile execs does not undercut the company's privacy oversight responsibilities under a consent decree with the FTC stemming from allegations Twitter misused users' data for targeted advertising.

The Post reported that some of the people leaving the company were from a data governance committee set up as part of the FTC settlement. ■

Elon Musk said Twitter will start letting users monetize “all forms of content” as he begins to put his stamp on the social media site he has just purchased.

That is according to a Tweet Saturday (November 5), the day after Musk laid off something like half of the company’s staff following the earlier exits of top executives.

Musk also tweeted that Twitter will “soon” allow users to append long-form texts to tweets rather than making them take screenshots, as is the case currently given Twitter’s 280-character limit, double the original restriction. The short-form limitation was arguably Twitter’s key gimmick/competitive differentiator when it launched in 2006.

Musk called it the end of “the absurdity of notepad screen shots.”

Also: Groups Ramp Up Pressure on Twitter Advertisers

Musk has been getting a lot of grief for the job cuts and for his defense of free speech, which others see as an abdication of the powerful platform's content moderation responsibilities and an invitation to hate speech and disinformation.

Various civil society groups have called on advertisers to boycott the platform over their concerns about hate speech and misinformation, including arguing that cutting jobs means even less oversight of content moderation that would weed out such speech. ■

Concerned civil-society groups including Free Press and Media Matters are ramping up their campaign against the Elon Musk-led Twitter.

They have already called on Twitter's top advertisers to threaten to pull their ads if Musk “undermines” the social-media platform’s community standards or content moderation. Those advertisers include CBS, Comcast, The Walt Disney Co., HBO, CenturyLink and Verizon Communications. 

“Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter came with his promise to advertisers like you that the social network would not transform into a ‘free-for-all hellscape’ and would remain ‘warm and welcoming to all,’ ” they wrote the advertiser CEOs earlier this week. “But beware: Musk’s promises in no way accurately portray his plans for Twitter, nor are they a reflection of the evolving reality of the platform as it transforms by the minute under Musk. If Elon Musk follows through with just a fraction of what he has already committed to doing, then Twitter will not and can not be a safe platform for brands. Urgent action is needed by advertisers.” 

Now, the #StopToxicTwitter coalition is holding what it bills as an “emergency press conference” Friday (November 4) to put an exclamation point on its call for a temporary advertiser boycott of the platform. 

In addition to concerns about the direction Musk will be taking the social media giant, the groups are pointing to recent and expected layoffs, which could constitute half of Twitter’s workforce, according to some reports. 

They also say they plan to hold Musk to pledges he made earlier this week to representatives from Free Press and others in the coalition to “retain and enforce the election — integrity measures that were on Twitter's books before his takeover.” CNN was reporting Friday that a class action lawsuit has been filed by some Twitter employees even as more layoffs are set to be announced Friday. The suit alleges the layoffs came without the requisite notice.

It looked Friday like the boycott was having some impact.

"Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists," he tweeted. "Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America." ▪️

Elon Musk will be on the new season of Jay Leno’s Garage on CNBC. Season seven begins September 7. There are eight episodes. 

CNBC has not yet shared when the Musk episode will air. Leno gets “unprecedented access” to the SpaceX “Starbase” facility in Texas from Musk, and an “exclusive look,” according to CNBC, at the most advanced rocket engine ever made.

Musk is co-founder and CEO of Tesla, and co-founder and CEO of SpaceX. 

Brie Larson, Post Malone, Gaten Matarazzo, Kelly Clarkson, Tim Allen, Jamie Lee Curtis, Pitbull, James Marsden, Danica Patrick, Alfonso Ribeiro, Gabriel “Fluffy” Iglesias, Tig Notaro, Reggie Watts, Tony Hawk, Mike Rowe, Jim Jefferies, Jeff Dunham and Diego Boneta also hang with Jay this season.  

“Jay’s knowledge and enthusiasm for the ever-evolving automotive industry is truly unmatched,” said Denise Contis, executive VP and head of content, CNBC Primetime. “This series captures the spirit of innovation and inspiration that is at the core of all of our primetime programming.”

Larson, creator of upcoming Disney Plus series Growing Up, and Ribeiro, co-host of Dancing with the Stars, are in the season premiere. 

“I am a huge believer in innovation,” said Leno. “This season I went down to Starbase in Texas to talk with the only person to send an actual car into outer space, Elon Musk. And Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things gets to drive some strange things as well as Brie Larson, Post Malone, Pitbull, Kelly Clarkson, Jamie Lee Curtis and racecar legend Danica Patrick comes out of retirement to drive with us in an exclusive hypercar.”

Jay Leno’s Garage is produced by Original Productions, a Fremantle Company, and Kitten Kaboodle, with Leno, Jeff Hasler, Jeff Bumgarner, Ernie Avila, Brian Lovett and Abby Schwarzwalder the executive producers, while Deb Savo exec produces for CNBC. ■

Charlie Ergen and Elon Musk continue to battle at the FCC over how to divvy up the skies and FCC spectrum.

Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen and other company executives met with FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and the other FCC commissioners last week to update the commission on its 5G buildout status and try to quash any suggestion that opening up the 12 GHz satellite spectrum for more terrestrial 5G real estate threatened to interfere with Starlink's satellite broadband service.

That is according to FCC documents on a series of meetings July 12.

Starlink, which uses a ring of low-earth-orbit satellites to deliver broadband--including famously to Ukraine during the war with Russia--is owned by Elon Musk's SpaceX.

As part of the T-Mobile/Sprint Merger, T-Mobile sold  its prepaid wireless business to Dish and opened its network to Dish for a half dozen years to the company could become a legitimate wireless competitor since the merger was further concentrating the market.

Also: FCC Flooded with Nearly Identical Comments Opposing Opening 12 GHz

Ergen and company told the FCC that as of June 14, Dish was offering 5G to over 20% of the country.

On the 12 GHz front, it said that opening up 500 MHz of midband spectrum would not interfere with Starlink's customers and that Starlink was engaged in an "ongoing misinformation campaign" that was "both scientifically and logically flawed."

Dish said that Starlink's evidence of such interference is skewed because 1) it used a single case--Las Vegas--that had unique "topology and morphology" that could not be extrapolated nationwide; 2) it assumes "overdeployment" of 5G towers; and 3) it says the majority of receive terminals in Las Vegas would be in urban and suburban areas while at the same time having said Starlink is targeted to sparsely populated regions.

Ergen and the executives reminded the FCC that it, too, is a user of the satellite spectrum for its DBS service and has no interest in harming its own customers or anyone else's.

SpaceX has reminded the FCC that Dish was against sharing before it was for it (https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/file/download/DOC-5fe748dcf4800000-A.pdf?file_name=SpaceX%20Further%20Response%20to%20DISH%20re%20Peters%20Studies%20%20(3-18-22).pdf), and calls Dish's defense of sharing now a "bizarre" assertion proffered through "a series of convoluted arguments that misrepresent both the assumptions and conclusions of [SpaceX interference] studies." SpaceX says that Dish's submissions claiming "minimal" interference have been debunked.

Back in 2020, the FCC sought comment on whether and how to allow terrestrial use while protecting incumbent users. The FCC has been all for sharing spectrum to meet the 5G need and is expected to do so with the 12 GHz band as well. In January 2021 it did just that, voting unanimously to propose opening up that 500 GHz midband spectrum for unlicensed 5G use.

The band is currently used for DBS, fixed satellite service multichannel video and data service (MVDDS), like Starlink's broadband service. All are co-primary users, but DBS must be protected from interference. ■

Elon Musk has dropped his bid for social media giant Twitter, telling the FCC it was because Twitter refused to provide critical information about just how many spam accounts were on the platform.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Musk's X Holdings said that for the past two months Musk has made it clear that he views Twitter's "non-responsiveness" to be a material breach of the merger agreement, which he has the right to terminate if the problem went uncured, as he told the FCC was the case. 

Musk said he had given Twitter "repeated, detailed clarifications intended to simplify identification, collection, and disclosure of the most relevant information sought."

"Mr. Musk hereby exercises X Holdings I, Inc.’s right to terminate the Merger Agreement and abandon the transaction contemplated thereby, and this letter constitutes formal notice of X Holding I, Inc.’s termination of the Merger Agreement." 

Twitter’s board of directors had backed Musk's bid to take over the company. Its members unanimously voted to accept the deal and advised shareholders to do the same.

The move by Tesla and SpaceX owner Musk could have meant the return of a tweeting Donald Trump, since Musk has said he would restore the former president's account. Trump, who has been signaling a likely run in 2024 via his own Twitter-less social media work-around, was banned from the site in January 2021 — after Twitter concluded his tweets had incited violence at the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot and could do so again. ■

The Federal Communications Commission has granted the application of Elon Musk's Starlink (SpaceX) satellite broadband company to deliver consumer and business broadband access to planes, boats and automobiles. 

But the regulator said SpaceX must accept any interference from incumbent or future users of the 12-GHz band — and there will likely be a few of those — and can cause no interference of its own to those services.

SpaceX had argued that granting the application would allow it to provide high-quality, low-latency broadband service while still complying with FCC rules and spectrum protections. The FCC appeared to be convinced, saying it agreed with SpaceX that it would be in the public interest to do so. The agency also approved a related on-the-go broadband petition by another satellite broadband provider, Kepler.

The FCC is encouraging low-earth-orbit geostationary satellite broadband systems as competition to existing internet service providers and as a way to reach places too uneconomical for wired ISPs to serve.

SpaceX had applied to deliver service on the go using the 12-GHz band for receive stations. SpaceX is currently trying to dissuade the FCC from allowing that satellite band to be shared with terrestrial wireless 5G, arguing it poses an unacceptable interference risk.

Dish Network, among a handful of others, had opposed the applications saying that neither SpaceX nor Kepler could show that their operations could comply with FCC rules. But the FCC said, “We agree with SpaceX and Kepler that their proposed … operations on an unprotected, nonharmful interference basis in the 12 GHz band will not materially impact the interference environment in that band.”

The FCC did impose some conditions. “These services, never before available, promise the potential for expanding reach to remote and rural areas and facilitating higher quality broadband services in the air, on the road, and on the water,” the commission said, adding, “We recognize, however, that the introduction of a potentially significant number of additional end users could affect the 12 GHz spectrum environment.”

Those conditions include that the authorization is granted on a “non-interference protected” basis, meaning it must take an interference punch, as explained above, but cannot dish one out. The FCC said the applications are subject to changes depending on how it finally resolves the 12-GHz 5G/WiFi sharing proceeding. ▪️

The number of media and telecom deals rose about 28% this year, with 1,014 transactions valued at $469 billion, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. The figures come as Elon Musk’s pending $44 billion takeover of social media giant Twitter and Microsoft’s upcoming purchase of video game maker Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion dominated the landscape.

Media deals were more on the internet and software side, according to PwC, although Amazon agreed to purchase movie studio MGM in March for $8.5 billion. In its Mid-Year Deals Outlook report, PwC Deals Partner Bart Spiegel and Technology, Media and Telecommunications Deals Leader Alan Stephen Jones wrote that M&A “activity has recently slowed among some of the major media companies, after a peak driven by content and technology acquisitions to fuel expansion of streaming services.”

But PwC was optimistic that deal growth will continue in the media and telecom sectors, adding that the volume of activity hasn’t slowed despite inflation and rising interest rates. The research giant added that while the pace of deals may slow, a significant amount of cash remains in the system to get deals done. And as always, “businesses are under pressure to transform; the fastest way to do that is through M&A,” PwC said.

According to PwC, private equity players accounted for a big chunk of transactions — increasing to 42% of deals in the past 12 months from 24% in 2018. All in all, private equity deals represented $194 billion of announced deal value, of which 75% were concentrated in the internet and software sectors, PwC said in the report.

Other key drivers include the demand for sports content, as the combination of streaming, ad sales opportunities, sports gambling and other tailwinds have boosted team and league values. PwC also pointed to huge streaming music content deals for legendary musicians like Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen, as well as the shift to digital advertising and an emphasis on audience targeting and engagement tracking, as catalysts for deals. ■

Twitter’s board of directors is unanimous in its support for Elon Musk's bid to take over the company. Its members have unanimously voted to accept the deal and advise shareholders to do the same.

The move by Tesla and SpaceX owner Musk could mean a return of a Tweeting Donald Trump,  since Musk has said he would restore the former president's account. Trump, who has been signaling a likely run in 2024 via his own Twitterless social media work-around, was banned from the site in January 2021 — after Twitter concluded his tweets had incited violence at the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and could do so again.

Also: SpaceX, OneWeb Offer Up Satellite Broadband Coexistence Plan

The Twitter board's support of Musk’s offer to take the company private came in a proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The board told stockholders that it had “unanimously: (1) determined that the merger agreement is advisable and the merger and the other transactions contemplated by the merger agreement are fair to, advisable and in the best interests of Twitter and its stockholders; and (2) adopted and approved the merger agreement, the merger and the other transactions contemplated by the merger agreement.”

If the stockholders vote to accept the deal, they will get $54.20 per share, about a 38% premium on the closing price of the stock April 1, which was $39.31. As of midday Wednesday (June 22), the price was $38.56. ■

Elon Musk's SpaceX (Starlink) and OneWeb, each of which are deploying competing low-earth-orbit (LEO) satellite systems for delivering broadband, have told the FCC in a joint letter that they have come up with a coexistence plan.

The Federal Communications Commission had authorized both companies to launch service in 2016, and both have applied for second-generation systems.

“After extensive good-faith coordination discussions, the Parties are happy to inform the Commission that they agree that their respective first-round systems can efficiently coexist with each other and that their respective second-round systems can also efficiently coexist with each other while protecting their respective first-round systems,” the companies wrote.

SpaceX and OneWeb both asked the FCC to quickly approve their respective second-round applications, saying their agreement negates all prior comments either party had made.

The FCC, under both Republican and Democratic chairs, has been supportive of nascent satellite broadband providers looking to compete with terrestrial ISPs using clusters of small non-geostationary satellites.

Other companies it has given the green light to include Space Norway and Telesat. ■

Fox Nation presents the special Who is Elon Musk? on Thursday, April 28. The special will explore the life of Musk, from building electric cars and spaceships, to dating Amber Heard and buying Twitter. 

“The richest man in the world always makes news,” teases Fox Nation. 

Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors, agreed to acquire Twitter for $44 billion earlier this week. 

Brian Kilmeade, a host of Fox & Friends on Fox News, hosts. The program will include interviews with Stuart Varney and Liz Claman of Fox Business, Seth Dillon, CEO of satire site Babylon Bee, and Heritage Foundation Fellow Kara Frederick.

Fox Nation costs $5.99 monthly and $64.99 annually. The streaming platform launched late in 2018. ■

Citing Elon Musk's ownership of satellite internet platform Starlink, the Open Markets Institute says that the FCC, Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission all have the power to block his purchase of social media giant Twitter.

In a statement following the deal announcement, OMI, a liberal think tank that has big issues with perceived monopolies, sees Musk's Twitter takeover as just that, and says the FCC, for one, can block it based on the Communications Act of 1934 and even the Telegraph Act of 1860, given that the deal would give a single person "direct control over one of the world's most important platforms for public communications and debate."

Also: Warner Warns Musk Against Twitter Backslide

DOJ and the FTC certainly have a role in reviewing the $40 billion-plus deal, but the FCC's role is less clear, particularly since it basically shed itself of broadband access oversight -- beyond service transparency obligations -- when it reclassified internet as an information service.

OMI also says the deal would be a merger between essential platforms -- Starlink and Twitter -- that the government routinely acts to prevent.

Interestingly, the group cites for example the DOJ's effort to block the ATT&T/Time Warner deal, which actually failed after a court refused to block that merger.

OMI suggests that Starlink, which has yet to become a major internet player (though it did get a lot of press for Musk's effort to use the satellites to provide internet access to war-torn Ukraine) is comparable to the largest media operations. 

"[J]ust as we would now expect the U.S. government to block a takeover of Twitter by Google, Facebook, Comcast, or Verizon, the same rules apply to the owners of Starlink," it said in a statement.

Many Democrats are concerned that Musk's pledge of reduced content moderation on the platform -- in the name of free speech -- will lead to an increase in disinformation and misinformation. 

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, who has been crticial of what Republicans see as Twitter's censorship of conservative speech, including that of former President Donald Trump, was unconvinced.

“The FCC has no authority to block Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, and to suggest otherwise is absurd," said Carr in a statement. "I would welcome the full FCC making it clear that we will not entertain these types of frivolous arguments.”■

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a potential presidential candidate down the road if some in his party have their way, has advised Elon Musk not to back off the fight against disinformation.

Musk struck a deal to buy the social media giant with a promise of greater free speech, which some fear could mean less moderation of disinformation, misinformation or hate speech.

Also: Musk Makes Twitter Bid

In a statement on the deal, Warner, who has pushed social media to better protect users by, among other things, curbing disinformation, said Twitter has been leaning forward "to tackle false, deceptive and manipulated content." That included banning Donald Trump.

But Warner said Twitter still has room for improvement, and suggested Musk needs to continue leaning forward, rather than "backslide" from reforms to a place that is "harmful to Democracy and to the important discourse that takes place on Twitter across the world every day."

Also: Twitter Pushed to Adopt Political Ad Disclosures

Musk has argued that Twitter needs to allow more discourse, but the key will be the degree to which that conversation strays into the kind of speech Democrats, including Warner, argue is dangerous to the Republic and its citizens. ■

Elon Musk said he has made a $42.20 a share offer to acquire Twitter.

In an SEC filing, Musk said he owns 73.1 million Twitter shares, representing a 9.1% stake in the social media company.

On April 13, Musk sent a letter to Twitter’s board describing the offer. 

"I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy,” Musk said in the letter. “However, since making my investment I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company.”

He said his offer represented a 53% premium over the price of Twitter stock on the day he began investing in the company, and a 38% premium over the stock’s price the day before the investment was disclosed.

“Twitter has extraordinary potential. I will unlock it,” he said.

Twitter was controversial during the Trump administration as messages from the former president appeared to frequently violate the service’s terms of services. Eventually Twitter shut down Trump’s account, prompting criticism from conservatives. Trump later started his own social media company.  ■

When it comes to the next generation of broadband services, fiber-based gigabit networks and 5G-enabled fixed wireless networks have drawn much-deserved attention. But satellite broadband services and integrated satellite and terrestrial services are becoming potent new sources of competition to the benefit of both residential consumers and enterprise customers.

Advanced geostationary orbit and emerging non-geostationary orbit fixed-satellite broadband providers are fast approaching the ability to reach residential consumers nationwide with high speeds. Competing fixed-satellite broadband services are increasingly offering consumers and businesses access with 25 Mbps, 50 Mbps, and even 100 Mbps download speeds. Near-future satellite broadband technologies are anticipated to reach terabit-level speeds.

According to the FCC’s 2018 Broadband Progress Report, at the end of 2016, about 92.3% of the U.S. population had access to fixed broadband Internet access services offering speeds of 25Mbps/3Mbps for uploads and downloads. Fixed broadband service coverage numbers rose to 95.6% of the population when satellite broadband services are included. Importantly, fixed-satellite broadband services have the potential to quickly close the broadband coverage gap almost entirely and to give consumers who already have access to broadband services new competitive choices.

Since 2017, the FCC rightly has encouraged satellite broadband services, including by granting new market entrant applications and by streamlining satellite service rules. Going forward, the Commission should continue making expeditious approval of satellite-based broadband services a priority. The Commission should follow through with its ongoing effort to streamline rules. Also, the Commission should reduce processing delays and at all times seek to make suitable spectrum available in a timely fashion for new satellite technologies and services, for example, like Ligado’s proposed service to use satellite-terrestrial spectrum on an integrated basis to serve primarily industrial enterprises.

Emerging Competition from Geostationary Orbit Fixed-Satellite Broadband Services: HughesNet and ViaSat
The Satellite Industry Association’s 2017 report indicates that there were nearly two million residential subscribers to geostationary fixed satellite broadband services at the end of 2016. The FCC’s 2018 Broadband Progress Report called specific attention to geostationary fixed-satellite broadband services offered by Hughes Network Systems and ViaSat: “The 2017 launches of the high throughput Jupiter 2 and ViaSat 2 satellites by Hughes and ViaSat, respectively, could further increase 25 Mbps/3 Mbps satellite offerings in the future.”

HughesNet is currently the largest provider of residential fixed broadband service, with approximately 1 million subscribers in 2017. In March of 2017, HughesNet deployed its advanced EchoStar XIX satellite, thereby doubling the capacity of its prior satellite configuration. Hughes’ reply comment in the FCC’s broadband progress report proceeding stated the EchoStar XIX enables it “to deliver broadband-defined speeds of 25/3 Mbps for residential users and 55/5 Mbps for enterprise users across the continental United States.”

Meanwhile, Hughes is planning an early 2021 launch of its EchoStar XXIV/JUPITER 3 ultra-high density satellite, which “will provide residential and commercial Internet and data services, including in-flight Internet and network backhaul for remote cellular towers.” It is reported that the Echostar XXIV/JUPITER 3 will have a total throughput of 500 gigabits per second.

At the end of 2017 ViaSat had about 577,000 residential subscribers to its broadband service, according to a quarterly earnings report. On February 2 of this year, ViaSat announced the availability of its fastest residential broadband service to date. Enabled by ViaSat-2 (pictured), its latest generation satellite, the new satellite broadband service has advertised speed tiers reaching 25 Mbps, 50 Mbps, and 100 Mbps in download speeds.

Via-Sat’s new satellite broadband service is available across the nation and offers unlimited data for all of its plans. A San Diego Union-Tribune story indicates that ViaSat intends to be competing with HughesNet and is also “positioning its service as a higher speed alternative to DSL offerings.” And ViaSat’s future plans include the launch of its ViaSat-3 satellite, which potentially will offer 1 terabit per second download speeds.

Emerging Competition from Non-Geostationary Fixed-Satellite Broadband Services: OneWeb, Space Norway, Telesat and SpaceX
The FCC’s 2018 Broadband Progress Report also highlighted recent agency efforts to close the digital divide by promoting non-geostationary satellite orbit (NGSO) fixed-satellite services with purported terabit-level speed capabilities. In June 2017, for instance, the Commission granted market access to SoftBank-backed OneWeb for its NGSO system. The Commission also granted NGSO applications by Space Norway and Telesat in 2017.

According to the FCC’s OneWeb Order, OneWeb’s system is set to consist of “a constellation of 720 satellites evenly distributed in 18 near-polar orbital planes, at an approximate altitude of 1200 kilometers.” OneWeb intends to use its system of numerous low-orbit satellites “to provide high-speed, affordable broadband connectivity to anyone, anywhere” in the United States, with launches planned for 2018 and 2019. Reports indicate that OneWeb’s plans include “connecting every unconnected school” by the year 2022. OneWeb’s first satellite constellation is projected to reach speeds of seven terabits per second, with successive constellations reaching significantly higher speeds.

Meanwhile, Space Norway’s planned “Arctic Satellite Broadband Mission (ASBM) system consists of two satellites in one orbit,” which would provide fixed broadband service coverage to unserved and underserved residential customers in the Artic region of the United States. Additionally, Telesat was “permitted to access the U.S. market using a proposed constellation of 117 satellites,” and thereby “enhance competition among existing and future” fixed-satellite broadband services.

Furthermore, on February 14, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai proposed that the Commission grant the application of Elon Musk’s SpaceX “to provide broadband services using satellite technologies in the United States and on a global basis.” Reportedly, SpaceX would deliver fixed-satellite broadband services using “4,425 satellites in non-geostationary orbit traveling in a tightly choreographed ballet 700 miles above the surface of the Earth.”

The FCC Should Continue Promoting Satellite-Based Broadband Technologies
The FCC’s 2018 Broadband Progress Report indicates that “[a]s of year-end 2016… over 24 million Americans still lack fixed terrestrial broadband at speeds of 25 Mbps/3 Mbps.” Also, 30.7% of Americans in rural areas as well as 35.4% of Americans on Tribal lands lacked access to fixed terrestrial broadband with speeds of 25 Mbps/3 Mbps.”

Fixed-satellite broadband services – including those briefly surveyed above – can provide an important solution for reaching unserved and underserved areas. Furthermore, fixed satellite broadband platforms can offer additional, competing choices to residential consumers and businesses in those areas already covered by wireline broadband networks and soon to be covered by 5G fixed wireless networks.

Moreover, advanced satellite-based broadband technologies are necessary to fully enable the Internet-of-Things. Satellite services will be essential for transmitting geo-location information to vehicles as well as for transmitting other data to myriad types of smart devices and equipment. Pending before the Commission, for example, is Ligado’s proposed service, which would use satellite capability in combination with a terrestrial network to deliver smart device communications.

If approved, the service would primarily support transportation, energy, electric utility, and public safety industry sectors. Ligado’s proposal, which depends on the use of mid-band spectrum in the 1-2 GHz range, was filed at the Commission back in December 2015. And the public comment period concluded in August 2016. Unless and until the FCC resumes its review process and approves the proposal, valuable mid-range spectrum resources will continue to go unused and generate no economic or other public benefits.

In sum, satellite technologies are poised to become increasingly important competitors in the next-generation broadband services market and essential facilitators of the Internet of Things. Accordingly, the FCC should build on its recent track record of promoting fixed-satellite broadband services. Indeed, prompt approval of new services using satellite-based technologies should remain a top priority. Streamlining of satellite service-related rules and clearing spectrum for commercial usage by satellite services should also remain imperatives.

Seth L. Cooper is senior fellow at the Free State Foundation, a Rockville, Md.-based think tank promoting free-market public policies.

Kourou, French Guiana — “We have more internets!”

After years of tension and toil, that was the joyful exultation of a ViaSat engineer the night of June 2, nearly 45 minutes after ViaSat 2, a new high-capacity broadband satellite, was successfully launched into orbit aboard an Ariane 5 heavy-lift rocket from Arianespace’s facilities in French Guiana.

The new bird, built by Boeing Commercial Satellite Systems, is equipped to deliver a powerful payload of 300 Gigabits per second of total throughput.

ViaSat 2 won’t enter service until early 2018 (ViaSat announced on June 22 that the solar arrays of the new satellite were successfully deployed), but the company is already laying the groundwork to deliver satellite broadband services of 100 Megabits per second or more.

For satellite-delivered broadband, that will represent a major accomplishment. A 100 Megabits-per-second offering would essentially quadruple the maximum downstream speeds now delivered by ViaSat’s current top end “Exede” service, as well as what’s offered by one of its chief rivals, Echo-Star-owned Hughes Network Systems.

“We’re still working on our plans, but we likely will have service plans that are up to 100 Mbps, and we may have some that are as high as 200 Mbps,” Mark Dankberg, chairman and CEO of ViaSat, said in an interview just hours before the launch, and during a driving rainstorm that, thanks to the lack of lightning, was never truly a threat to scrub the big event. “The satellite’s capable of that. The real issue is how do we price those plans and how many subscribers can we put on them?”

Though a 100 Mbps satellite-delivered broadband service is achievable, Dankberg said he believes most of the company’s subscribers will be on tiers that deliver slower speeds. But the launch of ViaSat 2 will give the company, which has about 659,000 satellite-broadband subscribers, the ability to far exceed what it’s delivering in the U.S. today using a legacy satellite fleet that includes ViaSat 1 and birds acquired in its 2009 acquisition of WildBlue Communications.

In addition to delivering gobs of bandwidth, ViaSat 2, at an orbital location of 22,236 miles above the earth’s equator (at 69.9 degrees west longitude), will enable ViaSat to expand coverage in North America, Central America, the Caribbean and a portion of northern South America. Key transportation routes between North America and Europe also are expected to benefit.

And there’s a lot more to come. “ViaSat has ambitions to be a global broadband services company,” Dankberg said. “This ViaSat 2 launch is a big step along the way for us towards that path.”

Faster and More Competitive
The ability to deliver faster speeds will give ViaSat a way to compete more directly with cable operators, telcos and other wireline internet service providers. But that won’t be the primary focus.

“Our mission is to be a really good choice for the underserved — not necessarily for people who already have access to fiber-to-the-home or the most modern cable [high-speed internet] service,” Dankberg said. “But the qualification I’m going to make to that is, we want to give that same experience to people who otherwise can’t get it.”

ViaSat 2 will help to turn ViaSat into a bigger regional provider of services that will also span government and enterprise customers while also enhancing its ability to deliver high-quality inflight connectivity as well as broadband service to cruise ships.

It will also amp up competition with Hughes Network Systems, which launched its HughesNet Gen5 service in March, and has already added about 100,000 new and upgrading subscribers to the speedier platform, which matches a 25 Mbps downstream with a 3 Mbps upstream. Gen5 is powered by EchoStar XIX/Jupiter 2, a multi-spot-beam, Ka-band satellite made by Space Systems Loral that launched on Dec. 18, 2016, and complements Hughes’s EchoStar XVII and Spaceway 3 data satellites.

Related: Hughes Tees Up Faster Satellite Broadband Service

Hughes, which has about 1.04 million satellite broadband subs and reaches both U.S. continental coasts plus parts of Alaska, believes it’s playing an important role because terrestrial broadband providers are more limited in how rapidly they can expand and generally don’t put a lot of focus on rural areas, according to Peter Gulla, senior vice president of marketing at Hughes.

Gulla said Hughes is also “finding a lot of opportunity” in areas where the telcos are letting their DSL networks languish as many instead focus on new fixed wireless options.

Still, Hughes will keep its target focused mostly on rural areas and where DSL service is weak, rather than applying marketing dollars and other resources in areas where wireline broadband competition is already strong.

“We are starting to see opportunities in the slow DSL areas,” Gulla said. “But you won’t be seeing us dropping a lot of flyers in New York City trying to convince people that they ought to switch to satellite [broadband]. I think we’re being realistic about what our product is and what it’s good for and what it does and what the value is.”

Though ViaSat is getting ready to raise the speed bar for satellite-delivered broadband, Hughes is not yet making any formal commitments to upgrade its capabilities.

“Right now, 25 [Mbps] seems to be meeting the needs of our customers,” Gulla said. “But that doesn’t mean that’s the end of the line.”

Need for Pricing, Data Flexibility
Beyond speed, other issues remain hot-button competitive factors. Among them: Satellite broadband-service providers will need to be more flexible on pricing and support relaxed data policies if they are to have much success in their traditional markets, even as some of them look to extend beyond rural regions, Jeff Heynen, consulting director and analyst at Kagan, said. Strict and complicated usage caps and data plans have long been sticking points for the satellite services.

Related: FCC OKs OneWeb Satellite Broadband Service

Under policies for ViaSat’s current Exede service, for instance, subscribers get a fixed amount each month of “Priority Data” at speeds of up to 12 Mbps to 25 Mbps, and, once those data buckets are used up, it pivots to slower speeds — between 1 Mbps to 5 Mbps. For its higher-end tiers, ViaSat also supports an unmetered “Free Zone” from 3 a.m. to 6 a.m., when traffic tends to be the lightest. ViaSat also lets customers purchase more Priority Data for $10 per gigabyte, or discounts if they purchase buckets of 5 GB, 7 GB or 10 GB.

“In the past, most satellite services that are consumer priced have had hard limits to the amount of bandwidth that you can use,” Dankberg acknowledged. “We’ve been testing, on ViaSat 1, service plans that are virtually unlimited. With ViaSat 2, we’ll be able to make those more common, lower priced and with higher speeds.”

The HughesNet Gen5 service offers data plans ranging from 10 GB to 50 GB per month, before speeds are reduced to about 1 Mbps to 3 Mbps. It also comes with a “Video Data Saver” option that adjusts the bit rate to deliver video in DVD quality. Those customers still have the ability to watch in HD by toggling off the Video Data Saver capability. HughesNet’s data policy also includes “Bonus Zone” hours (from 2 a.m. to 8 a.m.), when the customer can use 50 GB per month of free data rather than pulling it from their monthly service plan. HughesNet suggests that Bonus Zone hours are used to download large files such as movies and system updates.

Achieving success in new markets, Heynen of Kagan stressed, will hinge greatly on competitive pricing and the easing of data caps as they face off with competition from wireline internet service providers, as well as emerging LTE- and 5G-powered fixed wireless options that will be capable of delivering hundreds of Megabits of data per second and possibly Gigabit-class speeds.

“As people use more data and OTT, they are going to be very wary of pushing the boundaries of those data caps,” Heynen said. “They have to find a way to make the data caps as well as the monthly pricing reasonable for the service.”

AT&T, for example, is pushing ahead with a big rollout of fixed LTE services. “Out in those rural areas, LTE is a potential competitive threat,” Heynen said, noting that he doesn’t expect satellite broadband to continue to have the most success in its traditional focus areas, serving areas instead without much landline broadband and servicing airplanes and cruise ships.

“I don’t see the cost structure allowing [satellite broadband ISPs] to compete with a traditional DSL, cable or fiber service,” he said. However, he said he does believe satellite broadband services that are equipped with 100 Mbps capability can offer a “reasonable alternative,” particularly as DSL service struggles to deliver speeds any greater than 25 Mbps.

Licking the Latency Issue
Though satellite broadband is poised to deliver speeds that can match up with some of its earthbound rivals, the issue that’s toughest to overcome is latency, which can impact some interactive apps and services such as VoIP and multiplayer gaming.

According to the Federal Communications Commission’s 2016 Measuring Broadband America Fixed Broadband Report, the median latencies of satellite-based broadband services range from 599 milliseconds to 629 milliseconds, versus terrestrial-based broadband services, which range from 12 milliseconds to 58 milliseconds.

“I can’t go against the laws of physics, but I’d like to,” Hughes’s Gulla said. “But the bottom line is that there’s that traveling distance to and from satellite, and at the current distances, you have latency.”

He said Hughes is upfront about that with customers. “We do our best to explain and ask [customers] what they intend to do when they call us. We’re very clear that if you’re doing first-person shooter games, you’re not going to win.”

Other satellite-broadband initiatives are looking to overcome that latency issue.

One prime example is SpaceX, the privately held aerospace firm run by serial entrepreneur Elon Musk. USA Today, citing comments from Patricia Cooper, the company’s VP of satellite government affairs, reported that SpaceX is planning to launch 4,425 small satellites via reusable Falcon 9 rockets to support a constellation of lower-latency, low-earth-orbit birds, alongside a proposal for another 7,815 satellites that are even closer to the Earth’s surface.

Additionally, Airbus is planning a fleet of hundreds of small, low-earth-orbit (about 750 miles above the Earth’s surface) satellites in a joint venture with a startup called OneWeb. According to CNN, the joint venture is eyeing one launch every 21 days from French Guiana, with the first expected to lift off in about nine months. Service via the partnership, which includes backing from Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, Qualcomm and Japan’s SoftBank, is reportedly expected to start in 2019 and to cover the globe by 2020. The FCC approved OneWeb’s request to deliver service in the U.S. in late June.

ViaSat is also casting its eye toward global coverage with its planned set of ViaSat 3 satellites. The first, which will expand and enhance ViaSat’s coverage in the Americas, is planned to launch in 2019, followed in 2020 by a satellite that will cover the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region. ViaSat hasn’t announced when it expects to launch its third ViaSat 3 satellite, but it’s slated to provide coverage in the Asia-Pacific region.

President-elect Donald Trump has named PayPal founder and Tesla/SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to his Strategic and Policy Forum, a business roundtable that Trump will meet with as he charts and implements his economic agenda.

That comes as Musk and other tech leaders plan to meet with the President-elect this week.

Also joining the forum are Uber founder Travis Kalanick and PepsiCo. chairman Indra Nooyi.

Trump is filling his cabinet and surrounding himself with successful businesspeople and those he has identified can help make "better deals" for America.

“My Administration is going to work together with the private sector to improve the business climate and make it attractive for firms to create new jobs across the United States from Silicon Valley to the heartland," Trump said in announcing the additions to the forum, which was created earlier this month. Other members include Disney Chairman Bob Iger, former GE Chairman Jack Welch, and IBM Chairman Ginni Rometty.

If the Daytona 500 is a big event in your home, Fox Sports’s upcoming marketing of the big NASCAR race on Sunday, Feb. 21, could really rev your engines.

If you don’t already celebrate “Daytona Day,” Fox Sports executive vice president of marketing Robert Gottlieb hopes the campaign will start you up and head you in that direction.

Fox was slated to air a “Happy Daytona Day” 60-second ad during this past Sunday’s NFC Championship game, showing people across America enjoying their Daytona Day rituals and parties, Gottlieb said. Directed by Joseph Kahn, known for his Taylor Swift videos, it’s a centerpiece of pre- Daytona 500 marketing that is the biggest Fox has done since it first aired the race in 2001. [UPDATE: view the "Happy Daytona Day" 60-second promo video here.]

Recently retired four-time NASCAR champion driver Jeff Gordon is the other big component of the campaign, as he’s joining Fox’s booth this year. Fox produced a spot in Los Angeles in which Gordon’s car is being chased by L.A.’s Finest — but with a happier ending than many helicopter-filmed freeway pursuits. It’s slated to air on Feb. 11, Gottlieb said. [UPDATE: view the Jeff Gordon freeway chase ad at this link.]

Sunday’s game also was slated to include a promo in which Gordon and Fox NFL Sunday co-host Michael Strahan talk about how Strahan celebrates Daytona Day, Gottlieb said. Later this month, a The Simpsons spot will also promote the race.

Daytona is a bellwether for the entire NASCAR season and “the Super Bowl of the sport,” the marketer told The Wire, so it seemed apropos to position Daytona Day as a time for festive get-togethers, not unlike the Kentucky Derby or the Super Bowl (which airs Feb. 7 on CBS).

— Kent Gibbons

C-SPAN Offers Food for Thoughtful Coverage

C-SPAN gets style points for its latest campaign coverage promo goodies.

Last August, the public-affairs programmer sent out a mug, luggage tag and pen to national political reporters and 175 key cable-affiliate contacts to promote its “Campaign 2016: Road to the White House” coverage of candidates, by which it generally means letting them speak for themselves rather than pontificating over every word (but we digress).

Last week, as the primary and caucus season began to heat up, C-SPAN upped its game and aimed at the heart, er, stomach, of its key journalistic constituency.

Boxes of “campaign trail” mix and big cookies iced with maps of each of the four primary/caucus cities were sent to 55 key political media folks. The Wire would identify them, as well as 66 cable affiliates (Mediacom Communications, Comcast, Charter Communications, Time Warner Cable and Cox Communications) in key early primary or caucus states, but we’d have to wipe a bit of crumb from the Iowa map off our mustache.

“We tried to have a little fun” with the food, Marty Dominguez, C-SPAN’s vice president of marketing, told The Wire. “As C-SPAN’s Campaign 2016 coverage kicks into high gear in the first primary and caucus states, we wanted to give our media and cable friends a reminder about C-SPAN’s on-of-a-kind media coverage of the candidates along the campaign trail.”

— John Eggerton

And the Winner Isn’t! FCC Loses the ‘Luddite’

We’re not sure anyone was popping champagne at Federal Communications Commission headquarters, but the agency’s decision to reclassify Internet access as a Title II common-carrier service did not win the Internet Technology and Innovation Foundation’s annual Luddite award.

The award is named after Englishman Ned Ludd, “who led a movement in the early 19th century to destroy mechanized looms. [T]oday’s neo-Luddites likewise want to foil technological progress,” ITIF said.

The general public picked the winner.

The just-announced dubious honor, which goes to “the year’s worst anti-technology ideas and policies in action,” went to “alarmist” talk from folks like Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking and Bill Gates that artificial intelligence could “spell doom for humanity,” ITIF said.

The FCC had been nominated, according to ITIF, because, “in an effort to freeze network innovation, the [FCC], at the urging of a wide range of neo-Luddite organizations, enacted regulations to protect ‘net neutrality,’ a rather nebulous concept, generally standing for the principle that broadband networks should treat all data packets alike, even if they have different network needs. This will significantly constrain network innovation.”

That misstep, in the ITIF’s view, was ultimately trumped by warnings from Musk, Hawking and Gates that “in the not-so-distant future, humans could lose control of artificial intelligence (AI), thus creating an existential threat.”

Those optics work out better for one of ITIF’s honorary board members, Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the House Communications Subcommittee and a big proponent of the Title II-based rules.

ISPs would argue, and have argued, that Title II reclassification is a threat to the continued investment in broadband.

— John Eggerton