New York Gov. Kathy Hochul spoke at the Paley Center for Media in Manhattan September 12 and shared plans to increase the state’s role in TV and film production, and artificial intelligence. She touched on expanding the state’s “very generous” production tax credits “so we don’t lose business to New Jersey, to Georgia, to Toronto, to London.”

Hochul stressed how New York has a share of creative talent that the other locales may envy. “All the talent wants to be here … but they will go where the show goes,” she said. 

She spoke of increasing tax credits in 2023 from $420 million to $750 million, and noted how “we’re gonna make that even better.”

Hochul added, “We have the talent, and we have the diversity of talent, which is so important.”

The governor was interviewed by Sade Baderinwa, WABC New York anchor. It was a Paley Media Council address. Baderinwa asked what a half dozen new studio projects in the works means for TV and film production in the New York area. 

“Success breeds success,” Hochul responded . “We have more productions here. [Producers] see it and they want to be where the action is.”

Hochul, a Democrat, said the New York metro represents the best of the best in a range of departments, such as finance. But “what sets us apart is really our creative talent,” she said. 

She added, “It’s a cool place to live, and I’m always trying to up the cool factor.”

Baderinwa also asked about Hochul’s plans to promote artificial intelligence in New York. “It’s real simple. New York must be the best at everything. We must be the best, we must be the greatest, we must be the envy of the world,” Hochul said. “When it comes to a new technology, who owns the future? Whoever owns AI owns the future.”

The governor spoke of a “big ask” of the state legislature, to the tune of $275 million, to build a massive supercomputer dedicated to artificial intelligence that she stressed would not be owned by private companies. 

“How do I democratize AI for good?” she asked. 

Hochul touched on her career in public service in the interview, and her rise to governor, and learning about government as a high school student, which saw her take the bus into Buffalo to volunteer at Democratic headquarters. She was the youngest student to take part, she said, and the only girl — the latter a common theme in her career, she added. 

“I got out of gym class, I got out of lunch, I got out of study hall,” she said, thanks to the volunteer missions. 

On one excursion, she met Tim Russert, the former NBC News Washington bureau chief, and Meet the Press moderator, who died in 2008. “He helped me write my first press release,” Hochul said. “He took a red pen and killed it. I thought, why are you so rough on me? But he made me better.”

But it was while discussing the state’s AI plans that Hochul summed up her mindset. “It is N.Y. State,” she said. “Get out of our way.”

Wall Street Journal opinion columnist Peggy Noonan, a former speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan, revealed in a recent piece a powerful media metaphor that may become an important factor in the race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. Yes, the fate of either candidate in their quest for the presidency may depend on the now-fading memories of a TV host named Ed Sullivan. He’s universally remembered, of course, for creating the enduring cultural tsunami of The Beatles performing live on his show for three straight weeks in the winter of 1964. 

As Noonan observed, Trump “grew up, as did I, watching The Ed Sullivan Show. I’m sure it was on every Sunday night at 8 at the Trump house in Queens. On that show, you saw every week the great Borscht Belt comics of 1950-70. Their timing — ‘Take my wife — please!’ — is ingrained in him. What he does now is shtick, because he likes to entertain and is a performer.”

It’s hard to believe, but The Ed Sullivan Show on the CBS television network actually signed off in 1971 — over a half-century ago. By then, the show’s format and stars seemed like relics from the earlier days of vaudeville and burlesque.

The parade of comedians such as Henny Youngman, Myron Cohen, Alan King and Totie Fields made our parents and grandparents howl uncontrollably as we watched with them in our living rooms; it was true appointment TV for the entire family. By the time of Ed Sullivan’s poignant wave of the hand as the final episode’s credits rolled, however, a new breed of comics such as George Carlin and Richard Pryor clearly were emerging as favorites for a younger and hipper generation.

Sullivan also notably had as a show feature a recognition of celebrity guests in the audience, asking them to stand up so they could be recognized with a hearty round of applause. One can easily imagine a portly man in a blue suit and long red tie smiling and putting his thumbs up after the camera panned over after Ed Sullivan shouted his name. “Ladies and Gentlemen, let’s welcome noted New York businessman and man about town Donald Trump!”

In its time, The Ed Sullivan Show received consistent blockbuster ratings that far exceeded competing series hosted by the likes of Walt Disney and Steve Allen. It prospered for an incredible 23 seasons. But today, the last remaining vestige of Ed Sullivan is the nightly announcement that Stephen Colbert’s late-night show is being broadcast from a theater that CBS had named in Sullivan’s honor.

In contrast, the Harris campaign seems to have tapped into another zeitgeist entirely. Music outlets, with radio and streaming platforms such as Spotify and Pandora, are more important today in promoting stars who many younger and more diverse voters follow with the same sense of devotion that their elders had for those who appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. As Megan Thee Stallion and Charli XCX begin to show up at Harris campaign rallies and on her social media posts, accompanied by a Beyoncé soundtrack, the stark difference between the personas of the two candidates and their followers now is in full view.

While Trump and Harris compete politically, the battle between intense media experiences then and now seems likely to play an unanticipated role in how many will turn out to vote on Election Day, and who they ultimately select as their candidate of choice. Alas, the ghost of Ed Sullivan may well be a looming presence when people cast their ballots for the 47th president of the United States. 

The Senate Commerce Committee voted Wednesday to support a new bill funding the broke Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) with $7 billion, a move that sparked opposition from the committee’s ranking member, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who said he’ll fight it on the Senate floor. 

The funding plan also includes $3 billion for the also-broke “Secure and Trusted Networks Act” (otherwise known as “Rip and Replace”), which is backing the effort to remove technology equipment from Chinese suppliers Huawei and ZTE from U.S. broadband networks.

Also read: ACP May Get $6 Billion Lifeline With New Bipartisan House Bill

The ACP ran out of money at the end of May, putting the ISP accounts of 23 million Americans who signed up for it in flux.

Last week, both Comcast and Charter Communications both reported their worst quarterly broadband customer performances ever, with Charter losing nearly 150,000 customers from April through June. The loss of ACP funding was mentioned by company executives as a driving factor for customer defections.

Cruz has voiced his support in the recent past for re-funding a slimmed-down version of the ACP, a three-year-old FCC-managed government subsidy program designed to provide high-speed internet to low-income citizens. 

But as detailed in D.C. journalist Ted Hearn's increasingly essential PolicyBand newsletter, Cruz said the new Senate committee bill "has no reform in it at all. It's not paid for or offset in anyway." 

Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) responded by saying the funding will be offset by the FCC's spectrum auctions. 

The Senate bill is brewing as two House representatives earlier this week, one Democrat and one Republican, also proposed a new bill to provide ACP with $6 billion. 

That proposal does include reforms, such as lowering the threshold for eligibility from those earning 200% or less of the federal poverty line maximum to just 135%. Basically, a couple who had been eligible for ACP support with a combined household income of $41,000 would have to see their income drop to $28,000 to be eligible. 

As for the Senate bill, it's unclear how much bipartisan support it has, but simple mathematics suggest the 14-12 vote might have occurred across party lines. 

The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation currently seats 14 Democrats and 13 Republicans. According to PolicyBand, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), the Republican vice presidential nominee and described staunch supporter of the ACP, wasn't at Wednesday's vote. 

Two members of the House of Representatives introduced legislation Tuesday to provide the now-defunct Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) with $6 billion in funding to renew the program.

The House bill, proposed by the bipartisan duo of Reps. Nikki Budzinski (D-Ill.) and Mike Carey (R-Ohio),  is a companion to the Senate’s Secure and Affordable Broadband Extension Act, sponsored by Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) in May.

“I just introduced a bipartisan bill to restore the Affordable Connectivity Program and reduce internet costs for millions of low-income families,” Budzinski said in a post on X (formerly Twitter). “Thank you to @RepMikeCarey and the 10 colleagues from both sides of the aisle who are joining us in this effort.”

The program would provide the ACP with $6 billion in funding, do away with the the program’s one-time $100 subsidy, tighten the qualifications for eligibility and provide $3 billion for the FCC’s rip-and-replace program, an also-underfunded program aiming to rid U.S. networks of technology from suspect Chinese suppliers.

Also Read: Affordable Connectivity Plan Set To Expire Despite Last-Ditch Funding Efforts

The original ACP allowed enrollment of households earning less than 200% of the federal poverty guidelines, or about $41,000 for a family of two.

Prior to February, when the ACP stopped accepting new enrollments, nearly 24 million U.S. households were enrolled in the program.

ACP, which was introduced at the end of 2021, ran out of money on May 31.  High-speed internet providers, including Charter Communications, have attributed recent steep broadband customer losses to the defunding of the ACP.

The Benton Institute for Broadband and Society said ending the ACP for good will result in $2 billion in lost consumer benefits for Americans. 

Under Budzinski-Carey’s proposed bill, the eligibility threshold would fall to those with incomes 135% above the poverty line, or about $28,000 for a family of two.

While the new language would exclude some households once covered by the ACP, $6 billion in new funding would enable the Federal Communications Commission to sustain the program through the end of the year.

The U.S. Justice Department filed an friend-of-the-court briefing earlier this week, asking the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reinstate DirecTV’s antitrust suit against Nexstar Media Group and two smaller station groups.

Also read: DirecTV To Appeal Judge’s Decision To Toss Its Nexstar Antitrust Case

DirecTV accused Nexstar of conspiring to fix broadcast retransmission license fees through management services agreements with smaller station groups Mission Broadcasting and White Knight. 

Back on March 20, U.S. District Court Judge Kevin Castel of the Southern District of New York dismissed DirecTV's case. He ruled that any financial injury DirecTV suffered as a result wasn't caused by any price-fixing conducted by Nexstar, Mission or White Knight. Rather, damages resulted from DirecTV’s decision not to do business, starting in 2022, with Mission and White Knight stations … with the subsequent loss of programming causing DirecTV customers to unsubscribe. 

The DOJ believes Castel applied the wrong legal framework here, and it has asked the court overseeing DirecTV's appeal to “correct the district court’s erroneous holding in its antitrust-standing analysis that the sole type of injury for which a private consumer plaintiff can recover in a price-fixing case is the payment of supracompetitive prices.

“The harms from a price-fixing conspiracy are not so limited,” the DOJ added. “Price fixing corrupts the competitive process, and that anticompetitive harm can result in various antitrust injuries, such as reduced output and decreased quality, in addition to increased prices.”

DirecTV has accused of turning the smaller Mission and White Knight into "sidecars," negotiating retransmission consent for their 27 stations in 25 designated marketing areas in which Nexstar already manages duopolies. 

Netflix chairman Reed Hastings has given $7 million to a super PAC supporting Vice President Kamala Harris’ run for president, according to a report by The Information on Tuesday.

The publication said that this was the largest donation Hastings has ever given in support of a single candidate.

Hastings was reportedly encouraged to donate by Reid Hoffman, Democratic donor and co-founder of LinkedIn.

Also Read: Netflix Co-Founder Reed Hastings Sticks His Neck Out on Biden Debate

While the Netflix co-founder and former CEO seemed initially cautious to endorse Harris, writing on X Sunday,  “Dem delegates need to pick a swing state winner." 

But after Harris won enough delegates to secure the Democratic nomination Monday evening, Hastings quickly took to the app to congratulate her, stating that “now it is time to win.”

This comes just weeks after Hastings, among other media titans, publicly called for President Joe Biden to withdraw from the race.

Earlier this month, Hastings even wrote an email to The New York Times saying, “Biden needs to step aside to allow a vigorous Democratic leader to beat Trump and keep us safe and prosperous.”

The coordinated Harris campaign reported Wednesday morning that it had raised more than $250 million in donations for the Democratic party between Sunday afternoon, when Biden withdrew from the race, and Tuesday evening.

Seven months after the FCC proposed new rules that would eliminate “video service junk fees,” including early-termination charges, DirecTV is still pushing back. 

In a letter just sent to the agency, DirecTV outside counsel Michael Nilsson said early termination fees (ETFs), which can range from $450 to $700, are necessary in a linear pay TV business that requires installation of pricey equipment. 

“DirecTV does not charge customers ETFs after their first two years, unless a customer chooses to accept an offer with an ETF, such as a new equipment upgrade or a retention offer with a lower monthly price,” Nilsson wrote. “Without ETFs, DirecTV would likely be forced to require subscribers to pay equipment and installation costs up front, raise monthly prices or both.”

This “unintended consequence“ of the FCC’s notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) “would be to make switching to DirecTV considerably harder, particularly for low-income subscribers,” added DirecTV's bleeding-heart barrister.

The satellite TV operator also took aim at another part of the NPRM targeting so-called “billing cycle fees” (BCFs) — the FCC wants pay TV operators like DirecTV to give customers back a prorated refund for the remainder of the month if they canceled within a 30-day cycle they've already paid for. 

Nilsson tried to clarify DirecTV’s position on BCFs, stating that such rules could hinder cable and satellite TV companies from competing with online video distributors (OVDs), which would face the same restrictions.

“If a subscriber’s monthly term starts on the first of the month, and she cancels service on November 15, she in theory pays for the rest of November (that is, until December 1) but not for December,” Nilsson explained. “In addition, subscribers do not require ‘lead time’ to make their cancellation effective (e.g., a subscriber who calls on November 30 will not be charged for the billing cycle starting December 1). DirecTV emphasized that imposing additional regulations on satellite and cable providers (which are losing market share) will further inhibit their ability to compete against OVDs (which are gaining market share), and could ultimately leave consumers with fewer video choices overall.”

Cable lobby NCTA–The Internet and Television Association sent a similar missive to the FCC back in February. 

“We agree with NCTA that the commission should not adopt its ETF and BCF proposals but that, if it chooses to act, a better approach would be to prohibit only ‘unjust and unreasonable” ETFs,” Nilsson added. “Of course, the question then would be what is considered ‘unjust and unreasonable,’ and we offered our views that, at a minimum, ETFs used to permit consumers to pay for upfront costs over time should be considered at least presumptively just and reasonable.”

A bloodied Donald Trump rose to his feet and shook his fist after apparently being shot while speaking during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania Saturday. 

Trump dropped at the podium almost immediately after shots rang out, with Secret Service staffers rushing to his aid. He rose to his feet, blood coming from his ear, and shook his fist, much to the delight of the partisan crowd. He was quickly whisked away by security staffers, seemingly walking under his own power, and into an awaiting vehicle.

Campaign spokesman Steven Cheung issued this statement: “President Trump thanks law enforcement and first responders for their quick action during this heinous act. He is fine and is being checked out at a local medical facility. More details will follow.”

Police are reportedly evacuating the rally and treating it like a crime scene. No suspect apprehension has yet been reported. 

C-SPAN posted out video of the incident via social-media platform X:

The former president seemed to mouth the words, “fight, fight, fight” as he was being taken away by Secret Service. Some X users couldn't believe their own eyes. 

Missouri, where the entire movement to charge streaming companies cable industry-like “franchise fees” started, has shut the door on the gambit with new legislation. 

Republican Gov. Mike Parson on Tuesday signed into a law a bill that would restrict Missouri municipalities from charging companies ranging from Netflix to DirecTV — anyone who streams video — the kind of right-of-way charges cable companies are typically dinged for by digging trenches and attaching wires to power lines. 

Missouri became the 14th state to make that restriction, following Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Tennessee. 

In order to establish their physical infrastructure, cable companies have to pay franchise fees to municipalities. And, in 2018, Creve Coeur, Missouri sued Netflix and Hulu, demanding the companies pay similar tribute. 

Also read: Netflix, Hulu, Disney Sued Again Over Cable Franchise Fees

However, as noted by Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), a conservative group founded by Grover Norquist: “Streamers use the internet to reach homes. This means they either use wireless, satellites, or existing cable connections to deliver content to homes and do not alter municipal infrastructure to reach customers.”

Last we checked, many of these same streamers use internet delivered via cable infrastructure. But DirecTV, which operators DirecTV Stream, lauded Missouri's decision. 

“This overwhelming and bipartisan vote by the Missouri legislature, and Governor Parson’s signing it into law, should put to rest any further notion that franchise fees apply to consumers who choose to stream their content," said Hamlin Wade, associate VP of external affairs at DirecTV, who worked on the legislation across each state, in a statement. 

As ATR noted, there are still plenty of local governments that are taxing video services via means other than franchise fees. 

Chicago, for example, imposed a 9% ding on streaming services, calling it an “amusement tax.” And of the 45 states with a general sales tax, 33 include video streaming services in their sales tax base, ATR said. 

These charges are passed on to consumers. In February, Netflix began charging users an additional 5.07% over their usual tier rate to offset state “communications taxes.” 

Mediacom told the FCC it will meet the deadline to "rip and replace" equipment supplied by Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE by its July 15 deadline. 

"To date, 100% of the program has been completed across the areas of removal and replacement, and 99% of equipment has received disposal certification," the New York-based cable operator said in a filing to the FCC Monday. 

Established by Congress in 2019 to weed out Chinese telecommunications gear that could be used for espionage, the "Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act" has suffered from significant underfunding. In May, FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel sent a letter to Congress, informing lawmakers that the project has only received $1.9 billion so far, but needs closer to $5 billion to complete. 

A report compiled by the FCC and sent to Congress last week said only 14 telecom companies have completed their ripping and replacing of Huawei and ZTE gear. Nine of these companies, including Mediacom, took advantage of a six-month deadline extension rendered back in January. 

Rosenworcel told Congress that 40% of broadband providers can't afford to get rid of the Huawei and ZTE gear, which was deemed a national security risk in 2020.

The FCC has prioritized smaller ISPs "with 2 million or fewer customers,” which are often based in rural areas. And with these smaller companies, the FCC has been forced to prorate the funds, providing only 39.5% of the "reasonable costs" to replace the affected equipment. 

For its part, Mediacom asked for $86 million to lift its end of the couch and only received $36 million, according to Policyband's Ted Hearn. 

The incentive for ISPs, especially rurally situated ones, to comply is real. Failure to replace the Chinese gear would restrict ISPs from participating in the FCC's $8.1 billion Universal Service Fund subsidy program. 

I love freedom of the press. I applaud speaking truth to power. Fueled by these commitments, I am eager to discover solutions for the rightly venerated newspaper industry.

Since the dawn of the digital age, newspapers have been going the way of the dinosaurs. But the march towards extinction can be slowed, if not halted, with newspaper-television common ownership in the same market that augments reporting resources and journalistic talent to advance the public’s right to know.

 A good example is The Washington Post after it swapped WTOP Washington for a Detroit station in 1978, based on ownership limitations. 

Numbers do not lie.

The Post lost a stunning 500,000 subscribers from 2020 to 2023. It lost $77 million last year and is struggling to keep its head above water despite owner Jeff Bezos’ wealth. Advertising dollars have migrated to online platforms featuring more targeted and profitable advertising options.

The Washington Post is not an outlier. Newspaper advertising revenue plunged from 2002 to 2020 a staggering 52%, from $46.2 billion to $22.1 billion, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Service Annual Survey, as newspaper readers fled to digital sources for news. In 2023, internet advertising revenues rocketed to $225 billion, a 7.3% annual increase, per the Interactive Advertising Bureau. Social media alone accounted for $64.9 billion in ad revenue, an annual jump of 8.7%.

Further, social media and other digital platforms enjoy an enormous artificial advantage over  newspapers or broadcasters. Under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the former is shielded from liability for defamatory content posted by users. The latter is not. A newspaper or television station or network is legally exposed to actionable defamation for republishing statements made by third parties. Fox News paid Dominion Voting Systems $787 million for publishing false statements that its electronic voting machines counted votes for former President Donald Trump as votes for President Joe Biden in 2020.

Additionally, platforms like Google and AI profit by raiding content created by newspapers, broadcasters, or other content creators to make money. Current copyright protection for the creators is dubious or uncertain. The New York Times has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft. The complaint alleges the companies without permission used Times articles to train their AI models to generate outputs directly derived from copyrighted material. Congress could easily amend the Copyright Act to expressly extend protection against raiding copyrighted material of newspapers or broadcasters by Google, Microsoft or others, but the latter deter legislators with PAC money. 

Relevant content is created by local TV and surviving newspapers, only for our content to be stolen and used to make more money than TV and newspaper outlets.

Several other countries have recognized the unfairness and distortion of the marketplace that ensues by withholding copyright protection from content creators. The European Union passed the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act, requiring large online platforms to pay new publishers for using snippets of their content. The compensation is typically negotiated between platforms and publishers to fix a fair price.

Australia was a pioneer with the News Media Bargaining Code in 2021. It mandates negotiations between digital platforms and news media companies to pay for news content. If an impasse is reached, an arbitration process fixes the compensation. Canada’s Online News Act of 2023 is similar. It also requires negotiations between platforms and content creators to fairly compensate the latter for boosting the profits of the former. The Act aims to prevent the extinction of Canadian journalism.

At the dawn of broadcasting, the public benefits of common ownership of newspapers and stations were acknowledged by the Federal Communications Commission. It encouraged newspapers to invest in radio and television to boost these technologies and expand media availability. Newspapers were endowed with the financial resources and journalistic talent needed to operate radio and television stations, which accelerated the latter’s growth and audience reach. 

The Gannett newspaper chain was a prime example. The Washington Post Co. acquired WTOP in 1950. Its TV news operation flourished alongside its newspaper. 

In the digital age, it is fatuous to worry that common television and newspaper ownership in the same market compromises viewpoint or news diversity. The internet has ushered in virtual limitless competitive platforms. Moreover, as renowned First Amendment scholar Alexander Meiklejohn taught, “what is essential is not that everyone shall speak, but that everything worth saying shall be said.” 

Newspapers and broadcasters vet their content for quality. Internet platforms often do not, which is why it overflows with blather and imbecilities.

I am not suggesting that newspapers or broadcasters should be shielded from creative destruction ushered in by digital innovations and free market forces. But competition from the latter strengthened by unfair legal advantages has made encouragement of common ownership of newspapers and broadcast stations instrumental to preventing newspapers from becoming museum pieces like Tyrannosaurus Rex.

I am dedicated to moving heaven and earth to see that such a free press tragedy does not happen.

The Supreme Court has knocked the underpinnings out from under the federal courts’ traditional “Chevron” deference to agency interpretations of unclear statutes, which means it will be harder for the Federal Communications Commission to defend its regulatory decisions — like the return of network neutrality rules, for example — against legal challenges.

The court's conservative majority held that the Administrative Procedures Act “requires courts to exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority.”

Further, the Supremes said, the court “may not defer to an agency interpretation of the law simply because a statute is ambiguous.”

The doctrine of Chevron deference, established by the Supreme Court in the 1984 case of Chevron U.S.A., Inc. vs. Natural Resources Defense Council, established the legal test for when courts should defer to the expertise of a regulatory agency. In case there was any question about the impact on Chevron, the court made it clear, saying, “Chevon is overruled.”

Also Read: Gorsuch No Fan of Chevron Deference

The fact that a statute is ambiguous does not necessarily mean Congress meant for the agency, rather than the court, to resolve the issue, the Supremes said.

Bottom line, the court said, was that the Chevron doctrine is misguided because federal agencies, like the FCC, have no special competence in resolving statutory ambiguity, while courts do.

While the Biden administration’s defense of the doctrine pointed to the traditional argument that agencies have subject matter expertise that courts do not, the majority of the justices said Chevron deference swept in decisions that had little to do with an agency’s subject matter expertise.

“Chevron was a judicial invention that required judges to disregard their statutory duties. And the only way to 'ensure that the law will not merely change erratically, but will develop in a principled and intelligible fashion,' is for us to leave Chevron behind," wrote Chief Justice John Roberts for the majority.

Writing in dissent, Justice Elena Kagan said that while the ruling says challenges to agency decisions will still have to find some “special justification” for challenging an agency interpretation [like what constitutes a non-neutral internet], “courts motivated to overrule an old Chevron-based decision can always come up with something to label a ‘special justification.’ ” 

A rule of judicial humility gives way to a rule of judicial hubris, Kagan added. "Because agencies are ‘experts in the field,’ ” she said. “And because they are part of a political branch, with a claim to making interstitial policy. And because Congress has charged them, not us, with administering the statutes containing the open questions. At its core, Chevron is about respecting that allocation of responsibility — the conferral of primary authority over regulatory matters to agencies, not courts. Today, the majority does not respect that judgment."

In the 2005 Brand X decision, which was about the classification of Internet access service, the Supreme Court ruled that Chevron deference trumped an appeals court decision because that court had found the statute vague and, in such cases, the agency is due deference. The FCC had concluded that Internet access was an information service, not a telecom service subject to mandatory access.

The FCC argued in defending its original Open Internet Order that its authority to regulate ISPs as it did in the net neutrality rules stemmed from Chevron deference. ISPs disagreed.

Now the Supreme Court has, too.

Action-packed, Pee-wee!

NCTA – The Internet & Television Association has produced a 20-minute documentary showcasing the challenges and perils cable crews face as they lay fiber in rural America. 

In the doc, Every Last Mile: The Untold Story of Connecting Rural America, a Mediacom crew races against time and weather in frigid conditions to lay fiber in Lakewood Township, Minn, a community near Duluth with a population of around 2,000 people and an average annual snowfall of about 86 inches. 

In Congress, Arizona, a Cox Communications crew faces extreme heat of up to 115 degrees, as well as challenging rock topography, as it tries to deliver high-speed internet for the first time to a seminal gold rush community. 

And far north, in King Cove, Alaska, a community of 800 residents on the Aleutian Peninsula located 497 miles southwest of mainland Alaska, GCI crews struggle to avoid underground utilities which have locations that have not been precisely recorded. 

“The film is being used to highlight both the importance and challenges of connecting every community to modern internet service,“ NCTA communications chief Brian Dietz told us Thursday. “We all know about the importance of reliable internet and how high-speed internet changes the lives of people, but we don’t often focus enough on the hard work required on the ground to bring this critical infrastructure to rural and remote communities that are still waiting to be connected. This docufilm captures that story.”

ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox affiliates switched from their regular programming to carry live coverage of the verdicts in the porn star hush-money trial of former President Donald Trump.

Trump was found guilty of all 34 counts.

On ABC, anchor David Muir provided details, noting that Trump stood when the judge entered the courtroom Thursday afternoon and that a large number of security guards were present.

“This is unprecedented,“ Muir said.

On Fox News Channel, former judge Jeanine Pirro said, “We’ve gone over a cliff … It can be reversed.”

“I think we all have a lot of questions about what happens next,” CBS's Norah O’Donnell said of the Trump verdict.

‘There’s no bail, no restrictions, so he’s certainly free to travel to Florida…or anywhere else he wants to,’ said Tom Winter on NBC

After the conviction, Trump appeared before cameras. He repeated his claims that the case was overseen by a “conflicted judge” and that “this was a rigged, disgraceful trial. The real verdict is going to be November 5.“

Robert De Niro, announced as the winner of the NAB’s Leadership Foundation’s Service to America Leadership Award on May 28, will not get the award. The NAB noted that the June 4 awards event is “proudly bipartisan,” and said the actor’s “recent high-profile activities will create a distraction.”

De Niro clashed that day with supporters of Donald Trump outside the New York courthouse where the former president’s trial is going on. 

“The Celebration of Service to America Awards is dedicated to honoring the vital local journalism and public service that local radio and television stations provide to their communities,” the NAB said in a statement. “This event is proudly bipartisan, uniting those from across the political spectrum to celebrate the impactful work of local broadcasters and our partners.

“While we strongly support the right of every American to exercise free speech and participate in civic engagement, it is clear that Mr. De Niro’s recent high-profile activities will create a distraction from the philanthropic work that we were hoping to recognize. To maintain the focus on service of the award winners, Mr. De Niro will no longer be attending the event.“

The Service to America Leadership Award is presented in recognition of charitable work and public service. The awards event takes place at The Anthem in Washington June 4. 

“We look forward to a night of celebration honoring the exceptional work of broadcasters and our partners who make a difference in their communities every day,” the NAB said. 

Mission Broadcasting has sent a letter to Adell Broadcasting terminating Mission’s agreement to purchase WADL Detroit for $75 million.

The Federal Communications Commission approved the WADL license transfer, but imposed a number of conditions that made the deal unpalatable to Adell and to Nexstar Media Group, which helped finance the deal and would have run the station under a series of management agreements.

The FCC imposed its conditions after ordering Mission to sell WPIX New York, because it would be under the “de facto control” of Nexstar under a similar set of agreements.

Also Read: Owner of WADL Detroit Urges Mission To Close Station Purchase

“The FCC order expressly prohibits Mission from entering into certain of the sharing agreements and mandates material modifications to certain of the sharing agreements,” Mission CEO Dennis Thatcher said in the letter. “The FCC order likewise constitutes an order that prohibits the consummation of the sales of the purchase asset contemplated by the purchase agreement because it imposes conditions on consummation that were not contemplated.”

Mission also issues a statement regarding WADL. 

"Mission is very disappointed that Detroit’s television viewers will not receive the high-quality programming and public service that Mission’s ownership of WADL would have brought to the market. However, Mission felt compelled to take this action taking into account the Media Bureau’s recent decision to 'approve' Mission’s purchase only if Mission complied with a number of conditions which fundamentally rewrote the terms of the transaction. In light of the termination of the purchase agreement, Mission is also notifying the FCC today that it rejects the agency’s conditions and will not close the transaction."

Mission would have made WADL a The CW affiliate. Terminating the deal leaves Nexstar without a Detroit affiliate for its CW network next season. 

Mission cited a clause in its purchase agreement with Adell that says the deal can be terminated if conditions were placed on FCC approval.

But Adell Broadcasting CEO Kevin Adell, who built WADL, said he believes Mission broke the agreement.

“I think they violated the contract because they didn’t use their best effort” to get the deal past the FCC, Adell said.

He added that when he talked to Mission president Dennis Thatcher, Perry Sook, CEO of Nexstar and former Nexstar president Tom Carter, “They never told me the severity of their problem with the FCC,” Adell said. “So before I signed the contract it was really fraudulent inducement.”

Adell did not say whether he planned to sue Mission or Nexstar.

“I had a deal to sell the station for $75 million,” he said. “I wasted a year of my time and legal fees. I'm kind of tired of Perry Sook.”

Adell said that Nexstar and Mission still have two problems now that the deal to acquire WADL has fallen through.

The first is finding an affiliate for The CW in Detroit, which has been at several stations, including WADL, in the past few years.

Adell said there are no full-power stations left in the market for The CW to turn to. Being on a digital multicast channel is no good because those aren’t rated by Nielsen, which makes it hard to sell advertising. Also, the sports that Nexstar has acquired for The CW won’t look good in standard definition on a digital channel.

“I believe the need is still there,“ Adell said. “He needs the station and he needs to clear Detroit by August 31.” 

If Nexstar still thinks it can find a way to buy WADL, “the price isn’t going to be $75 million,” he said. 

The other problem for Nexstar and Mission is that the conditions the FCC put on the acquisition have disappeared because the deal was terminated.

Those conditions will make it difficult for Mission to buy more stations and have Nexstar run them. 

“Any time Mission goes to buy a station down the road, those six conditions are going to come up,” Adell said.

The conditions might also threaten the “sidecar” stations Mission already owns that are managed by Nexstar, he added.

The outlook for the U.S. government’s Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) remains terminal, with none of the multiple late-hour efforts in Congress intended to replenish funding for the depleted program appearing close to achieving that goal.

Introduced in December 2021 as a way to help low-income Americans afford internet, the subsidy program has been on partial rations since May 1 and will officially run completely out of money on May 31, unless Congress acts to save it.

The cancellation of the ACP, which comes at a time when the U.S. broadband industry is already bleeding customers, with Comcast Cable president and CEO Dave Watson telling investors Tuesday to expect increased customer attrition in the second and third quarters. 

On a consumer level, the ACP’s sunset could leave more than 23 million U.S. homes paying up to $40 more each month for internet service, or canceling their service altogether.

And, according to a White House fact sheet, nearly half of ACP subscribers have historically been military families, with seniors, African Americans and Latinos also relying on the service in disproportionately higher rates.

In the past week, two new proposals have surfaced to help refund the program, which is now solely issuing partial payments: one an amendment for an appropriations bill enacted in March, which would include further funding for the ACP; and another that offers a significantly pared-down version of the monthly subsidy.

The latter proposal, introduced Monday by Rep. Brandon Williams (R-N.Y.), also provides that all households enrolled in the program will remain eligible for 180 days after the bill’s passage, before having to re-enroll in the ACP, this time through the National Verifier or National Lifeline Accountability Database in order to combat fraud.

According to Williams, the funding for H.R. 8466 would come entirely from existing federal funds, creating no additional taxpayer burden.

But text for the full bill has yet to be released. And with just one co-sponsor — Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-N.Y.) — it’s highly unlikely that, if passed, it could provide a solution before vulnerable Americans are impacted by the cancellation of ACP aid.

Meanwhile, Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) introduced the ACP Extension Act in January, a bill to fund the program to the tune of $7 billion, with the most bipartisan support of any ACP action item.

Despite its 230 co-sponsors (technically enough support to pass the House), the bill has stalled on the House floor.

Additionally, a discharge petition filed last month to vote on the bill without the support of House Speaker Mike Johnson failed to receive the necessary absolute majority to bring it to vote, leaving the status of the ACP Extension Act uncertain.

In addition to Congressional efforts to save the bill, Charter’s Spectrum Mobile brand is offering a free mobile line for one year for home internet customers who are losing their ACP benefits.

That’s in addition to a buyout plan, which offers up to $2,500 for customers who switch to Spectrum Mobile and purchase at least three lines.

“Our new phone buyout program is designed to help customers switch from the steep costs associated with other mobile providers,” Sharon Peters, Charter executive VP and chief marketing officer, said in a statement.  

While no single program can replace the benefit of the ACP, if it expires, there are a variety of local and state subsidies, and discounted plans that can help those customers struggling with the additional financial burden.

Lifeline, a federal subsidy that provides $9.25 a month to low-income households for internet or cellphone plans is available to individuals with an income totally 135% of federal poverty guidelines or less.

Customers can also receive Lifeline support if they are enrolled in Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income, Federal Public Housing Assistance, Veterans Pension and Survivors Benefit or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

WASHINGTON — Sen. Amy Klobuchar on Thursday plugged her bill in Congress aimed at helping local media get more compensation from the likes of Facebook and Google by collaborating under an exemption from antitrust regulation — fittingly at the Business of TV News event here.

The Minnesota Democrat, who chairs the Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights, co-sponsored (with Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana) the Journalism, Competition and Preservation Act. That bill, which she said cleared the Judiciary Committee by a 14-7 bipartisan vote, helps address the challenges faced by news organizations that have seen revenue decline while Big Tech thrives.

Read More: Coverage From the Business of TV News Event

“If the world was perfect, we wouldn't be here talking about this at all, because the antitrust laws would've been already enforced against these platforms,” Klobuchar said in a keynote opening the conference. “But because we’re not in a perfect world, as has happened in the past with farm co-ops and the like, you get exemptions from the antitrust law to be able to actually take on what is a monopoly and even the playing field. And so that's what this [bill] does. It allows for the news organizations to band together to negotiate for better rates.”

Klobuchar spoke about her father, Jim Klobuchar, who was for decades a reporter and columnist for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “He interviewed everyone from Mike Ditka to Ronald Reagan to Ginger Rogers,” she said. 

“He once wrote a book called The Heroes Among Us about ordinary people doing extraordinary things. And he would capture that in everything he did,” Klobuchar said. “And that's what journalists do. They find the thread that brings people together from different walks of life. They open our eyes to the bad and the good. And we need that more than ever. Right now, we know that these outlets are struggling, and I don't think it's because of a lack of talent or passion for the work.”

The senator noted that local newspapers have closed all across the country — “eight more in the last month,” she said. “And that's where you see decaying democracy. That's where you see that no one really is covering what the city council is doing or why a business closed. … And that scares me for the band that binds us as communities. It also scares me for our democracy.” 

TV news has not been immune from economic pressures. From 2000 to 2018, ad revenue for local TV stations declined by over 40% in real terms, Klobuchar said. “Meanwhile, two companies, Facebook and Google, worth over $3 trillion combined, became advertising titans.” Google reported more than $61 billion in quarterly advertising revenue, up 13% from the same period the prior year, she said. 

“And we all know this is how people are getting their news, but how are they doing it while they're sucking up ad dollars, while taking actual news stories from credible reporters and feeding them to their users and refusing to offer fair compensation?“ Klobuchar asked. “And as new digital technologies allow consumers to access even more news content on connected devices like smart TVs and smart speakers, the problem will only get worse. While the rise of digital platforms has sometimes been a larger audience, we know that for certain news outlets that hasn't translated to increased revenue.”

In Australia and Canada, government efforts have helped local media get more compensation from Big Tech, she said. “We’re hopeful we are going to find a way to forward this bill,” she said, in spite of lobbying against it and the overall difficulties of getting laws passed these days.

Far-right political programmer Newsmax, along with a number of left-of-center media-watchdog nonprofits, have gotten behind Fubo to help the virtual pay TV company fight the power that is the upcoming Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. sports streaming joint venture. 

On Thursday, Fubo sent a letter to key ranking House and Senate committee members, asking Congress to meet and intervene on the officially still unnamed JV informally known by flippant, lazy hacks like us as “Spulu.” 

Co-signing the letter are DirecTV and Dish Network, which already pledged their allegiance to Spulu's cause several weeks ago by filling supportive affidavits in Fubo's federal antitrust suit against Spulu. 

Also cosigning the letter were the Sports Fans Coalition, the American Economic Liberties Project, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Open Markets Institute … and Newsmax. 

Here's the missive:

Dear Chairs & Ranking Members: 

We are writing to urge your Committees to hold hearings on the future of competition in pay-TV. Recent developments in the pay-TV market — including the programming giants’ new joint venture (“JV”), a streaming TV service that would control 80% of national live sports broadcasts -- raise serious competition concerns that call for Congress’s immediate oversight. 

The JV between Disney, Fox, and Warner is expected to launch this fall, in time for the next NFL and college football seasons. In addition to controlling 80% of all national live sports broadcasts, the JV will control approximately 55% of all live sports (regional and national). We cannot think of any scenario in the history of the United States where consumer interests have been served when such an important industry — here, access to live sports — is effectively controlled by three programming giants which decided to combine forces instead of competing against each other. 

Worse yet, these same programming giants enforce anticompetitive and inflationary contract restrictions on distributors that will insulate the JV’s streaming service from head-to-head competition because these contract restrictions prohibit competing distributors from offering consumers their own “skinny” live-sports bundle. However one measures it, the JV will eventually dominate the distribution market for live sports and will drive out competition, leaving consumers captive to the JV for live sports — unless Congress and regulators intervene.

When one vertically integrated company has the power and incentive to drive out its competitors — as this JV will — policymakers have previously stepped in to protect competition and consumers. For example, in the 1992 Cable Act, Congress enacted new program access rules that prevented vertically integrated cable operators from discriminating against new entrants in the pay-TV business, namely the then-nascent satellite TV providers trying to compete with cable. 

We are at the same inflection point now. The JV partners demand that their competitors offer “big fat bundles” of programming (as described by Disney’s CEO) that include many unwanted but expensive channels, while their own JV service offers a much skinnier package consisting only of “must-have” sports channels. Americans love their live sports and entertainment, and they expect Congress to ensure competition and choice in accessing these shows. We thus urge you and your colleagues to hold hearings as soon as possible on the future of pay TV.

The internet is one of America’s greatest success stories and is now an essential part of daily life for millions of people around the world. Through significant investment, innovation and the hard work of thousands of people building modern and innovative broadband networks, we’re close to making the internet accessible to all Americans — regardless of where they live. 

The digital divide is a persistent challenge, but it’s one Verizon Communications and the Communications Workers of America are committed to solving.

We believe the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) is part of the solution. The ACP has made unprecedented progress towards connecting all Americans by helping to ensure more than 23 million households can afford high-quality, high-speed internet. By providing a $30 per month discount on service, the ACP makes it possible for millions to obtain jobs, complete homework, connect with family, access life-saving information and conduct all the other business we do online every day. Americans from all walks of life — from urban and rural inhabitants to students, older adults and veterans — rely on the ACP to obtain and sustain their internet connection. 

With $42.5 billion in funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program, network buildout is making broadband access a reality for people in the most unserved and underserved areas across the country. But building networks is only part of the equation. To make the most of the significant investment in BEAD and to support good jobs, maintain service and assist customers, we must ensure that high-speed broadband is affordable for everyone. 

Unfortunately, funding for the ACP is about to run out. Despite its success, April is the last month the program will provide full reimbursements that lower the cost of broadband for families in need. The Federal Communications Commission has joined with the White House and many others, including Verizon and CWA, to urge Congress to extend the program and to make sure that everyone — regardless of income — stays connected. Notwithstanding bipartisan efforts, Congress has yet to act. New applications are no longer being accepted and the program is winding down.

That is why renewing funding for the ACP should be an immediate congressional priority.

At a time when we are making tremendous progress on deploying broadband infrastructure to the places that need it most, Congress must act swiftly to make sure this valuable program continues delivering on our goal to close the digital divide. 

Allowing the ACP to end would be a significant blow to achieving this goal and it would diminish the impact of our ongoing network investment. It is not too late to save the ACP, but we need action now. Congress must renew ACP funding immediately.

The Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), which is credited with helping 23 million American households in need pay for internet service, has officially entered a "partial funding" phase.

Households that rely on the pandemic-era program will receive a maximum of $14 for the month of May (with the exception of tribal households), rather than the typical $30.

At the end of May, the program will run completely dry and reliant households could be left paying up to $40 more each month for their broadband.

Efforts to extend the program have thus far stalled in Congress, despite mounting bipartisan support for the bill. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has yet to bring the bill to the floor, and seems unlikely to, according to CNN.

“It is clear the program would be extended if the speaker would allow a vote,” Blair Levin, an analyst at the market research firm New Street Research, said in an interview with CNN. “So far, he has not said anything about it, but it appears he will not allow the House to vote on the legislation. He has not, to my knowledge, said anything substantive about the legislation or the program.”

Lawmakers from both political parties pushed legislation earlier this year to maintain the program through the end of the year with a $7 billion infusion when it first began to run dry.

The White House has also pushed for an extension, but the Republican-led House leadership has yet to respond.

In the meantime, customers in need can reach out to their internet providers, as many companies have discounted plans available for low-income households.

In California alone, nearly 3 million households rely on the assistance provided by the ACP, according to California Broadband for All.

In fact, a study conducted by the FCC in December 2023 found that nearly 80% of ACP benefactors said losing the service would force them to move to a lower-cost plan or drop internet service entirely.

For lawmakers who feel more affinity to corporate interests than disadvantaged Americans, there’s also this: By some estimates, Charter Communications has close to 5 million internet customers paying via the ACP subsidy. Charter — which, like many cable companies, has stopped growing broadband subscribers — can ill afford an exodus of these customers. 

The FCC, as expected, voted 3-2 along party lines (with Democrats in the majority) to restore network neutrality rules that were eliminated under Republican control and to regulate internet providers under Title II of the Telecommunications Act.

The vote sets up a likely battle in the courts and Congress over what the cable industry’s biggest trade group called “unnecessary and unlawful broadband regulation.” Advocates, including Federal Communications Commission chair Jessica Rosenworcel, favor the return of Title II common-carrier regulation of broadband to guard against “blocking traffic, slowing down content or creating pay-to-play internet fast lanes” as she put it in a “fact sheet” on the agency’s website. 

Prior net neutrality rules went away in 2017 when the FCC under then Republican chairman Ajit Pai reclassified ISPs as Title I information services not subject to mandatory access or potentially rate regulation rules. 

Michael Powell, president and CEO of NCTA–The Internet & Television Association, began his reaction statement with: “Today’s action is the latest installment of a long-running campaign to establish FCC control of the internet. This is a politically-motivated reversal of prior law, not an exercise in evidence-based rulemaking. There is no evidence of a problem to be solved.” He concluded it with: “The good news is that the FCC’s action will be overturned in court. Congress has always been the appropriate forum to resolve these issues. We can only hope that the damage done to our vibrant internet ecosystem in the meantime will be limited.”

Brendan Carr, one of the two Republican commissioners who voted against the measure, put out his own fact sheet of reasons why putting broadband under Title II regulation was unneeded and could discourage investment in network improvements. “After the FCC imposed Title II rules on the Internet back in 2015, many broadband providers reduced their investments and halted the expansion of their networks,” Carr said. "Indeed, it was the only period of time outside of a recession where broadband investment declined. And after the FCC repealed those rules in 2017, broadband providers set new records for building out Internet infrastructure.” 

In teeing up today’s move with a preliminary vote on April 3, Rosenworcel stated the case for Title II. “The pandemic proved once and for all that broadband is essential,” Rosenworcel said then. “After the prior administration abdicated authority over broadband services, the FCC has been handcuffed from acting to fully secure broadband networks, protect consumer data, and ensure the internet remains fast, open, and fair. A return to the FCC’s overwhelmingly popular and court-approved standard of net neutrality will allow the agency to serve once again as a strong consumer advocate of an open internet.”

The agency also has said it will “establish broad, tailored forbearance — including no rate regulation, no tariffing, no unbundling of last-mile facilities and no cost accounting rules — in the commission’s application of Title II to broadband Internet access service providers.” 

Rosenworcel at today's meeting noted that after the FCC's net-neutrality rules were shelved, states such as California put in place their own version of regulations prohibiting blocking, throttling and paid prioritization on the web, but said the better approach is to have a national policy overseen by an expert agency. Net neutrality, she said, is supported by 80% of the American public, and the rules being adopted by the commission were "legally sustainable because they track those that were upheld by the courts in 2016, from front to back." 

Conditions put on the proposed sale of WADL Detroit, to Mission Broadcasting have created a potential drama in the Motor City.

Kevin Adell, CEO of Adell Broadcasting, owner of WADL, told Broadcasting+Cable he expects the $75 million deal to go through, but said that Mission called the conditions “problematic.” 

Mission’s bid is being financed by Nexstar Media Group, which wants WADL to become the market’s CW affiliate after September 1, when the CW’s deal with WMYD, owned by E.W. Scripps Co., expires. Scripps and Nexstar have said the affiliation deal won’t be renewed.

But a similar deal, in which Mission bought WPIX New York and had Nexstar run the station under a series of management and marketing agreements, led to the Federal Communications Commission’s Media Bureau fining both companies and requiring Mission to sell WPIX because Nexstar’s “de facto” control of the station put it over the agency’s ownership limit. 

Nexstar has challenged the FCC’s decision. 

To prevent a similar situation in Detroit, the FCC approved the sale of WADL but barred Nexstar from being involved in financing the deal and limited the amount of programming Nexstar can provide to WADL, how much of WADL’s ad revenue Nexstar can keep, how much Mission can pay Nexstar for providing services and prevented Nexstar from getting an option to buy the station in the future.

The conditional approval was reported earlier by The Desk.

Brendan Carr, the senior Republican FCC commissioner, issued a statement on the “FCC’s denial of WADL-TV’s application.” 

Carr said that the FCC’s Media Bureau “styles its decision as a ‘conditional approval,’ but it is no such thing.”  

The decision “requires these private parties to abandon the deal that they had negotiated and decide whether to accept an entirely different deal on entirely different terms,” he said.

Carr said the decision exceeds the agency’s statutory authority, saying the law requires the FCC to either grant the application or designate it for a hearing.

“Here, the FCC chooses neither of the two options Congress authorized,“ Carr said. “It is not approving the application on terms agreed upon by the parties. Nor is it designating the application for hearing. It is instead taking the application the FCC received and substituting it for a new one drafted by the agency. That’s not the FCC’s job or role.” 

Nexstar and Mission Broadcasting declined to comment on whether they would close the acquisition under the conditions imposed by the FCC.

Adell said that his lawyers contacted Mission on Tuesday, after the ruling, telling Mission it had two choices: Either to pay the $75 million and close the deal within the five days called for in the sale agreement while contesting the conditions imposed by the FCC, or to set up a local marketing agreement that would allow Mission to run the station while the ruling is challenged. Mission would have to give Adell 80% of the purchase price or $60 million immediately if it goes the LMA route, and pay the remainder over eight years.

Failure to close the deal would result in lawsuits, Adell said. Plus, Nexstar needs a CW affiliate in a big market like Detroit. “It’s either me or off the air,” he said.

Despite the conditions, “I’m glad the commission approved [the application],” Adell said. “They could have sat on it or they could have sent it to an administrative law judge, and that would have essentially killed this deal.”

The conditions imposed by the FCC take effect after the sale. “That’s their problem, not my problem, Adell said.

Adell said he didn’t think a sizable broadcaster like Mission would have trouble getting a loan to buy WADL.

The other conditions can be worked around, Adell said, unlike something more severe, like being forced to sell stations to acquire WADL.

Met With FCC Chair

To get the deal approved, Adell said, he met with FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel five times. He invited Mission to join him in those meetings, but Mission passed. “If they had problems with the conditions, they had ample time to negotiate,” he said.

Adell has been a broadcaster since he was a teenage ham radio operator. He built WADL right out of college after getting a construction permit from the FCC.

He said Rosenworcel admired his status as a longtime broadcaster and assured him the deal would go through. “She told me [the delay in approving the application] has nothing to do with me,“ he said. ”The company that’s buying you is under investigation. I can’t talk about it.”

Carr, who had criticized aspects of last month's Nexstar-Mission decision, noted that the long review and conditions imposed were a problem for the broadcast industry.

“As I have said recently, we are at a break-glass moment for America’s broadcasters,“ Carr said. ”They are facing unprecedented headwinds and competition, including from their largely unregulated Big Tech competitors. The FCC should be focused on decisions that will make it easier for broadcasters to attract the capital necessary for them to invest, compete and serve their local communities. Once again, the FCC does the opposite today.”

National Association of Broadcasters president and CEO Curtis LeGeyt has agreed to a contract extension that keeps him at the trade association’s helm through 2029. He’s been with NAB since late 2011. 

“NAB and its members are thrilled to have Curtis LeGeyt leading our advocacy efforts in Washington and delighted about his contract extension,” Perry Sook, NAB joint board chair and chairman and CEO of Nexstar Media Group, said. “Curtis has demonstrated exceptional leadership, strategic thinking and an unwavering dedication to the future of broadcasting, ensuring NAB remains at the forefront of innovation. We are confident in his ability to drive continued success for NAB and its members.”

LeGeyt was named president and CEO of the National Association of Broadcasters in January 2022 after a stint as chief operating officer. He succeeded Gordon Smith atop the association. 

“I am deeply honored to be entrusted with the leadership of NAB,” LeGeyt said. “Representing the broadcast television and radio stations that unite our communities during this transformative period in media is a privilege. The growing importance of our stations in delivering news and information Americans can trust drives my commitment to this vital industry. I am grateful for the faith placed in me by the NAB Board of Directors and our members, and I am committed to an innovation agenda that allows local TV and radio to thrive well into the future for the betterment of our communities.”

During LeGeyt’s tenure as president, the NAB has advocated for policies that it says would level the playing field with big tech, keep access to AM radio in automobiles, prevent a new radio performance fee and further the deployment of ATSC 3.0, among other priorities. 

NAB Show took place April 13-17 in Las Vegas, with LeGeyt offering the opening address for thousands of broadcasters. 

Nexstar Media Group is asking the Federal Communications Commission to cancel its order that WPIX New York be divested by Mission Broadcasting, claiming that the agreements under which Nexstar runs the station for Mission are legal and approved by the commission.

Nexstar also wants a $1.2 million fine levied against it by the FCC canceled. Mission was also fined $612,395 as part of the commission’s Notice of Apparent Liability.

“Through the NAL, the Commission seeks to wield its enforcement authority in a myriad of improper ways,” Nexstar said in its response.

Nexstar said the FCC ignored its prior approval of WPIX’s arrangements with the station group, deviated from previous commission rulings and misapplied certain financial regulations.

Mission said it also filed a response to the FCC's action. The response was not made public.

In March, after complaints from Comcast and others, the FCC ruled that Nexstar had taken de facto control of WPIX in violation of the agency’s rules. It said that Nexstar both ran the station and received the economic gains from its operation.

Control of WPIX puts Nexstar over the limit for how much of the country its stations can reach. As a result, The FCC gave Mission 12 months to either sell the station to an independent party or to Nexstar. If it sells to Nexstar, the company must divest some of its other stations to get under the cap.

Nexstar acquired WPIX when it bought Tribune Broadcasting in 2020 and sold an option to buy the station to the E.W. Scripps Co. Mission later acquired the option and bought WPIX. Mission and Nexstar reached agreements enabling Nexstar to run and program the stations and sell its ad inventory.

In its response, Nexstar said the commission “argues that Nexstar violated the Communications Act by performing the express terms of agreements that the FCC previously reviewed and approved. It seeks to rewrite FCC rules without a notice-and-comment rulemaking proceeding.”

Nexstar charges the FCC with creating new regulatory requirements without prior notice or due process and applying “vague” standards. 

“After reaching these flawed legal conclusions, the Commission then decides, without any forewarning, that it has the authority to propose divestitures as part of an NAL, in addition to proposing an unprecedented forfeiture for a purported violation of the national ownership cap,” Nexstar said.

"The NAL is not only unfair in its treatment of Nexstar, Mission, and the community that WPIX serves (of whose interests the Commission takes no consideration), but also is unjust to the broadcast industry and the FCC-regulated community at large,” Nexstar added. 

“What the Commission tells its regulatees in the NAL is that they may take no comfort in their settled expectations based on approval, precedent and compliance with the rules, because the Commission may revoke such approval, ignore its precedent or change its rules without warning,” Nexstar said. 

John Malone has stepped down from his role as director emeritus on the Charter Communications board, citing concerns that his simultaneous presence on Warner Bros. Discovery's board of directors violates the Clayton Act. 

“I stepped away from my director emeritus role at Charter due to the uncertainty around Clayton Act inquiries,” Malone said in a statement. “I remain heavily invested in Charter via Liberty Broadband — which maintains its three board seats — and am confident in Charter’s leadership team and strategy for the business.” 

Malone had held the director emeritus position since 2018, when he retired from a full-time director role. 

Malone's move comes after Steven Miron and Steven Newhouse, two other executives who simultaneously occupied Charter and WBD board seats, came under Justice Department scrutiny for possible violations of the Clayton Antitrust Act. The 1914 law was designed to curtail conflicts of interest arising from board members serving two competing companies at once. 

Both Miron and Newhouse resigned from the WBD board earlier this month.  

“Charter, through its Spectrum cable service, and WBD, including through its Max streaming subscription services, both provide video distribution services to customers,” the DOJ said in a statement. 

The news was originally reported by Cablefax.

“Lost at sea” is how the National Association of Broadcasters recently characterized the Federal Communications Commission in deliberating a proposal for priority application review and processing for stations that met certain local programming thresholds. The NAB emphasized that local journalism and programming can be best saved in the digital age by abandoning its obsolete, Depression-era broadcast-ownership rules.

That theme also echoed at this week’s NAB Show. Curtis LeGeyt, NAB’s president and CEO, explained that a top priority was the education of policymakers (i.e., the FCC and Congress) on the pronounced marketplace imbalance in the fight for advertising dollars and program content between local broadcasters and titans like Google, X, Facebook, Apple, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, TikTok, etc. None of these giants is handicapped by the FCC’s ownership restrictions. That needs to change.

In his NAB Show main-stage appearance, LeGeyt added that he works daily “to make sure that local stations across the country have the resources that they need to go and deliver on [their] mission. And that means giving our broadcasters a little bit more scale, the ability to compete with big tech.”

I am the sole owner of seven television stations and co-owner of the Baltimore Sun newspaper. I agree with LeGeyt and NAB. Unless the FCC wants the broadcast industry to follow the newspaper industry over the cliff, its rules should recognize that radio and television stations compete for ad and program dollars not just with other local stations, but with gigantic content and distribution platforms with capital resources hundreds of times larger than the largest broadcast operations. As LeGeyt noted, “Washington, D.C., pretends that [broadcasters] only compete against one another for advertising dollars and for audience.” 

As the extensive record developed over the last 20 years in the FCC’s Quadrennial Regulatory Review process shows, the digital disruption of the media marketplace has fundamentally altered competition for audiences and advertisers. Television broadcasters compete with innumerable online and multichannel outlets. But the FCC’s rules impede local stations’ ability to compete successfully by effectively serving viewers. They are like the horse and buggy in the age of motor vehicles.

The broadcast industry’s ability to function in the “public interest, convenience and necessity” (Section 309 of the Communications Act) requires economic viability. Ownership restrictions uniquely saddling local broadcast stations impair “economic viability” and the public interest.

Eliminating the FCC’s anachronistic ownership restrictions will stimulate the development and production of new content more efficiently, technological upgrades, a reduction in redundancy and a streamlining of operations to slash costs and achieve economies of scale. Local broadcasters will then have the means to survive temporary downturns in the economy.

At present, giant ad platforms and tech companies that compete directly with radio and TV broadcasters for audiences dominate the market. They own leading audio and video-streaming services (e.g., Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV Plus, Spotify, YouTube Music) further providing a competitive advantage. They control the dominant consumer technologies (e.g., smartphones, smart speakers, connected-TV devices, etc.) used by hundreds of millions of Americans to access digital content. 

The FCC should write an epitaph to its backward-looking broadcast ownership rules. How can it ignore what all the world can see and daily experience in the marketplace for audiences and programming content in the digital age?

Two Democratic members of the House of Representatives wrote a letter to the CEOs of The Walt Disney Co., Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery, asking more questions about their upcoming streaming sports joint venture while also expressing their “competition” concerns.

“As programmers, your companies exert tremendous influence over pricing across the live sports TV ecosystem,“ reads the missive, penned by Reps. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, and Joaquin Castro (D-Texas).

“Upstream, programmers negotiate content licensing deals with sports leagues like the National Football League and the National Basketball Association for the media rights to their sports events,” the House members added. “Downstream, programmers determine the terms on which video distributors may license programmers’ sports channels. Without more complete information about the pricing, intent and organization of this new venture, we are concerned that this consolidation will result in higher prices for consumers and less-fair licensing terms for upstream sports leagues and downstream video distributors.” 

Disney, Fox and Warner announced the new venture, in which they would bundle their collective linear sports channels, back in early February. It’s targeted to debut in the fall, and former Hulu and Apple executive Pete Distad was recently named CEO, but the JV (which goes by the internal codename "Raptor") still doesn't have an official name or a price. 

But it has plenty of pushback, including an antitrust lawsuit filed by virtual MVPD operator Fubo. The U.S. Justice Department is also looking at the JV for antitrust reasons

The letter from Nadler and Castro said that the JV will control 80% of U.S. sports TV rights. 

“To determine whether the JV will reduce competition and harm consumers, the members ask the companies to submit responses to a series of questions about the JV’s intent, pricing, licensing, and organizational structure,” the missive reads. 

The Congress members said companies have until April 30 to respond to their letter via email and are instructed to copy the Justice Department in their replies.  

. 

Federal Communications Commission chair Jessica Rosenworcel sits for an interview at the Paley Museum in New York April 16 at 12:30 p.m. ET. Moderated by Nick Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic, the two will discuss net neutrality and spectrum policy, media regulation, technological innovation, and the FCC’s efforts to promote greater opportunity, accessibility, and affordability in communications services.

Rosenworcel was nominated to the FCC by former President Barack Obama in late 2011 and was sworn in in 2012. President Biden named her as chairwoman, first as an interim, then the official chair in October 2021. 

Rosenworcel’s appearance is part of the PaleyDialogues series, which features media and business leaders discussing trends and challenges. Accenture sponsors PaleyDialogues, along with The Paley International Council Summit, which happens in November.  

The next installment of the PaleyDialogues series features Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase & Co. chairman and CEO; and Frank A. Bennack, Jr., former CEO of Hearst, assessing the economy and offering their financial outlook. That happens at the Paley Museum May 28. 

DirecTV is pushing back on the Federal Communications Commission’s new “all-in pricing” rules, claiming the agency’s new mandates are built on a faulty interpretation of Section 335 of the Communications Act and that the regulator doesn't have the authority to enforce them. 

In a letter sent to the FCC last week, DirecTV said the agency’s interpretation of Section 335 is too broad — it gives the FCC the latitude to regulate “direct broadcast satellite services” for “the adoption of programing and carriage-related obligations,” such as educational shows. But it doesn't give the FCC the right to impose rules for “any regulation” that it deems to be “in the public interest.”

“Even if we agreed with the all-in pricing order’s Section 335 reasoning (which we do not), that reasoning suggests that the Commission lacks authority to impose [the order],” DirecTV outside counsel Timothy Simeone wrote. 

“In response to the argument that Section 335(b)(3) confers authority over prices, terms, and conditions only in connection with educational channel capacity, the all-in pricing order states that an all-in pricing mandate is not a regulation of prices, terms, or conditions,” Simeone added. “The Commission thus appeared to acknowledge that it would be impermissible to regulate prices, terms, or conditions of service outside of educational channel capacity.”

Last month, FCC commissioners voted 3-2 across party lines in favor of the all-in pricing order, which requires cable and satellite TV companies to “specify the ‘all-in’ price clearly and prominently for video programming service in their promotional materials and on subscribers’ bills.” 

The FCC specified that line items tied to “broadcast retransmission consent, regional sports programming, and other programming-related fees” fit into the bucket of charges regulated by the new order. The FCC broadly refers to these charges as “junk fees.“

The Federal Communications Commission will vote on whether to restore net neutrality during its open meeting April 25, which it said would bring back a national standard for broadband reliability, security and consumer protection. The proposal, from chair Jessica Rosenworcel, would ensure that broadband services are treated as an essential resource deserving of FCC oversight under Title II authority. Three commissioners (a majority) have already indicated their support for the measure.

The FCC said the proposal would see the commission play a key role in preventing broadband providers from blocking or slowing down internet service or creating pay-to-play fast lanes; would provide oversight of broadband outages; would boost security of broadband networks; would increase consumer protections; and would restore a national standard to keep access “fast, open and fair.”

Also Read: FCC Ups Benchmark For Broadband Speed

“The pandemic proved once and for all that broadband is essential,” Rosenworcel said. “After the prior administration abdicated authority over broadband services, the FCC has been handcuffed from acting to fully secure broadband networks, protect consumer data, and ensure the internet remains fast, open, and fair. A return to the FCC’s overwhelmingly popular and court-approved standard of net neutrality will allow the agency to serve once again as a strong consumer advocate of an open internet.”

Also Read: Cable ISPs Look to Shape Expected Return of FCC's Net Neutrality Rules 

NCTA–The Internet & Television Association, the cable trade association, wasn't pleased. “In the absence of any harm, the FCC is barreling ahead with a backward-looking, unnecessary proposal. Its repeated legal flip-flopping has become a tiresome political ritual unmoored from congressional direction that radically upends what should be a stable regulatory environment,” it said in a statement by president and CEO Michael Powell. “But this time, reimposing heavy-handed regulation will not just hobble network investment and innovation, it will also seriously jeopardize our nation’s collective efforts to build and sustain reliable broadband in rural and unserved communities. We urge the FCC to reverse course to avoid years of litigation and uncertainty.”

Independent communications consortium ACA Connects, for one, called the proposal unwarranted. “The FCC should be celebrating and empowering smaller and independent broadband providers, not seeking to tie their hands with century-old common carrier regulations,” ACA Connects president and CEO Grant Spellmeyer said. “Today, these providers ARE upholding the principles of an open internet and delivering unfettered, affordable, and faster services to their customers. This is in large part thanks to America’s competitive marketplace and its time-tested, balanced regulatory approach.”

ACA also pointed to statements by Republican commissioner Brendan Carr at an ACA event on March 6, when Carr said this to Spellmeyer about reapplying Title II regulations to broadband providers: “It’s a reaction to a market power dynamic that hasn’t existed in decades. It doesn’t make sense that the debate has crystalized to protect edge providers like Apple, Amazon and Meta from small broadband providers. ... Relitigating Title II is looking at a rearview mirror, while ignoring real other threats.” 

The commission, meanwhile, posted a video on X (formerly Twitter) to help make the case for net neutrality.

Rosenworcel will circulate her proposal to her fellow commissioners for their review. A draft will be made public on FCC.gov. The April 25 meeting will be open to the public and streamed live at www.fcc.gov/live.  

Walmart plans to redo and refile documents pertaining to antitrust issues regarding its proposed acquisition of Vizio.

According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission by Vizio, “following informal discussions with the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice, Walmart notified the antitrust agencies that Walmart will voluntarily withdraw and refile the Hart-Scott-Rodino notification report form for the merger in order to give the antitrust agencies additional time to review the proposed transaction.”

Walmart plans to refile on March 29 and said the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements act will expire on April 29.

The filing did not specify what if any objection regulators had to the potential combination of the giant retailer and the TV set maker, which is also a leading provider of viewing data through its Inscape unit.

Walmart agreed to buy Vizio for $2.3 billion in February.

Walmart planned to use Vizio’s SmartCast TV operating system as a way to connect with customers,

Analysts said that a combination of Walmart and Vizio had the potential to disrupt the CTV advertising landscape

Adding Vizio would help Walmart grow its already burgeoning media business. Like other retailers, Walmart is in the data business, helping marketers figure out if their advertising is driving store sales. With Vizio’s viewing data, Walmart could have a big advantage in tracking advertising effectiveness.

Former President Donald Trump has filed a defamation lawsuit against ABC News and George Stephanopoulos, host of This Week With George Stephanopoulos. On This Week March 10, Stephanopoulos asked Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) about endorsing Trump for president, and mentioned the 2023 court case involving Trump and E. Jean Carroll, who claimed Trump raped her. He said, “Judges and two separate juries have found him liable for rape.”

A jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse, but not for rape. The judge later said the jury’s findings established “the substantial truth” of Carroll’s allegations of rape. The judge added that the sexual abuse Trump was found liable for means Trump “in fact did ‘rape’ Ms. Carroll as that term commonly is used and understood,” according to CBS News. 

Two juries awarded Carroll $88.3 million in damages. 

Trump’s lawsuit accuses Stephanopoulos of acting “with actual malice or with a reckless disregard for the truth,” and claims the host “knows that these statements are patently and demonstrably false.” 

An ABC News spokesperson did not comment. 

By a 3-2 party-line vote, the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday approved a report and order that would require cable and satellite pay TV operators to publish in their advertising and on customer bills the actual total price of their video service, so-called junk fees included. 

The FCC's new “all-in pricing” order will “require cable operators and DBS providers to state the aggregate cost of video programming (that is, any and all amounts that the provider charges the consumer for video programming, including for broadcast retransmission consent, regional sports programming, and other programming-related fees) as a clear, easy-to-understand and accurate single line item in promotional materials, if a price is included in those promotional materials, and on subscribers’ bills,” the FCC says in a fact sheet published in February. 

“Consumers deserve to know exactly what they are paying for when they sign up for a cable or direct broadcast satellite subscription,” FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democrat, said in a statement released back in June. “No one likes surprises on their bill.  The advertised price for a service should be the price you pay when your bill arrives, rather than hide a bunch of junk fees that are separate from the top-line service price. 

Rosenworcel has also recently proposed ending early termination fees by cable and satellite providers. 

As to when cable and satellite operators will have to start abiding by the new reporting rules is unclear. A rep for NCTA: The Internet & Television Association told Next TV that the cable lobbying organization still hasn't seen the final order. 

Not surprisingly, the cable industry pushed back on the FCC's order.

“Today’s misguided action will not help consumers and will only add confusion from government-imposed ad requirements,“ NCTA said in a statement. “Cable providers offer clear and accurate pricing information to attract and retain subscribers, including ‘all-in’ pricing information before signing up for service. The FCC’s micromanagement of advertising in today's hyper-competitive marketplace will force operators to either clutter their ads with confusing disclosures or leave pricing information out entirely. For consumers, it’s a lose-lose proposition.”

ACA Connects, meanwhile, said the order doesn't account for what the group representing smaller, independent cable providers says is the root cause of escalating fees, broadcast retransmission consent fees. 

“ACA Connects members support providing easy-to-understand and transparent pricing for customers,” it said in a statement. “However, this order fails to meet that goal because it does nothing to address a driving cause of sticker shock —broadcasters’ retransmission consent fees forced on cable providers and, ultimately, on their customers. Further, the heavy-handed requirements are more likely to confuse people than increase transparency and will create implementation challenges for providers.”

Consumer groups, of course, felt differently.

Consumer advocates told the FCC that between 24% to 33% of the typical monthly pay TV bill can be attributed to so-called junk fees, which include line items such as “broadcast TV fees,” “regional sports surcharges” and “HD technology fees."

Meanwhile, a 2019 analysis conducted by Consumer Reports of 800 cable bills, revealed the cable industry generates $450 per customer, per year, from company-imposed fees.

"Public Knowledge applauds the agency for helping consumers learn the true price of what they’re paying for before they sign up for video programming, preventing surprise costs while also improving consumer choice," Public Knowledge said in its statement. 

The Federal Communications Commission today adopted new, higher download and upload speeds as the benchmark for determining whether or not broadband is being deployed in a reasonable and timely fashion.

The new benchmarks are 100 megabits per second for downloads and 20 Mbps for uploads, an increase from the agency's 25/3 standard set in 2015. The new determination is part of the FCC’s regular assessment of the state of broadband deployment under Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act. The FCC, under chair Jessica Rosenworcel, set the latest review last November, signaling that the Biden administration sees 1 gigabit per second as future table stakes for the definition of high-speed broadband that is today’s “advanced telecommunications.”

The agency said in a statement after meeting today that advanced telecommunications capability is not being deployed in a reasonable and timely fashion based on the total number of Americans, Americans in rural areas and people living on Tribal lands who lack access to such capability, and the fact that these gaps in deployment are not closing rapidly enough. The vote for the new speed standards was 3-2 with the Democrats in the majority.

In setting the new benchmarks the agency considered standards now used in federal and state programs (such as NTIA’s BEAD Program and various Universal Service Fund programs), consumer usage patterns and what is actually available from and marketed by internet service providers, it said.

NCTA: The Internet & Television Association, representing cable companies, called the report “a missed opportunity for the FCC to acknowledge the substantial and undeniable progress that has been made in deploying broadband to all Americans, and to take credit for its role in that success. Indeed, just two days ago, the FCC’s own annual performance report stated that ‘this past year at the agency will be remembered for our progress toward [the] objective’ of ensuring 100% broadband coverage. The FCC’s decision not to recognize this progress in today’s report seems to be driven by an effort to bolster its regulatory authority more than any attempt to assess the pace of broadband deployment objectively. As internet providers work to connect every community to fast, affordable and reliable broadband service, the FCC can further speed this deployment by reducing regulatory barriers instead of imposing onerous new utility rules that will give the agency unprecedented power to micromanage the broadband marketplace.”

NRECA, representing electric co-ops, said: “The commission’s vote is a step in the right direction but still falls short of meeting the needs of rural communities. Affordable and reliable broadband access creates new ways to live, learn and earn in rural America. Rural families and businesses should not be subjected to second-class service simply because of their ZIP code. Consumer residential and business demands have already surpassed the benchmark approved today. With that in mind, the FCC should move to set future-proof benchmark speeds of at least 100/100 Mbps to ensure the broadband needs of rural communities can be met as demand continues to grow.”

CTIA, which represents the wireless industry, has accused the cable industry of lobbying against the allocation of 5G spectrum to slow the advance of fixed wireless access broadband. 

In a blog post titled “Cable Is Trying to Use Spectrum Policy to Stop 5G Home Competition,” Nick Ludlum, senior VP and chief communications officer for CTIA, accused lobbyists for the cable industry of posting "disingenuous, or just flat-out inaccurate, statements about global spectrum allocations."

As originally reported by Light Reading, FWA operators including T-Mobile and Verizon Communications, are looking to acquire more spectrum in the lower 3-GHz band to, according to CTIA, “meet the surging demand” for 5G wireless data. 

The cable-backed group Spectrum For the Future, however, argues in its own blog posting that these wireless companies want to “pursue old-school approaches to spectrum licensing that will only reinforce the dominance of Chinese equipment from companies like Huawei.”

Sino fears serve as merely a disingenuous scapegoat for cable’s real fear, Ludlum said, which is competition from FWA. Since they emerged three years ago, 5G fixed wireless services from T-Mobile and Verizon have dominated customer additions for home broadband. 

In a separate graphic, CTIA also shows the growing 5G “spectrum deficit” — the amount of spectrum wireless carriers actually have now vs. what they need to service 5G demand, per the FCC. 

A Republican state legislator in Missouri has sponsored a bill intended to stop cities and other local jurisdictions from imposing taxes and fees on Netflix and other streaming companies. 

“A ‘Netflix tax’ would raise costs for Missouri families, limit consumer choice, and hinder economic growth,” wrote Rep. Ben Keathley in a Missouri Times op-ed piece, explaining House Bill 2057.

“Franchise fees are a way for cities to recoup costs from traditional video providers, like cable and phone companies, from digging up streets, laying or hanging wires and accessing rights of way,” Keathley added. “It makes no sense to impose franchise fees on streaming. These services are accessed over the internet. Therefore, there is no impact on cities’ infrastructure.”

Claiming he’s familiar with the “bottomless appetite” of local governments for “more revenue,” Keathly also said that his bill has drawn support from a number of “taxpayer advocates,” including Americans for Tax Reform president Grover Norquist.

Silicon Valley streaming companies are getting help from Heartland-situated small-government-focused conservative politicians as they fight state and local taxes on numerous fronts … and in some cases, just give in.

Earlier this week, Netflix sent an email to its subscribers in Florida, informing them they'd have to pay an additional “state communications tax” surcharge, which adds up to 5.07% of their monthly service charge. 

According to online sales tax resource Accurate Tax,  Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Washington currently tax streaming services under existing state sales-tax laws. And Netflix generally hasn’t pushed back against this method in the same way it has with state and local governments that try to lump streaming in with telecom services. 

But that may be starting to change. 

In late January, Netflix told a state court in Colorado that its services should not be subject to sales taxes. Colorado has been collecting sales taxes on streaming since 2021. Netflix is arguing that the taxes violate federal laws protecting electronic commerce. 

Donald V. West, 94, former top editor of Broadcasting+Cable (formerly Broadcasting magazine), died February 4 at The Jefferson retirement community in Arlington, Virgina.

West took over as top editor of then-Broadcasting magazine in 1982 upon the death of magazine co-founder Sol Taishoff and led the magazine through design and name changes, as well as various enterprises including newsletters, international editions, and convention dailies. He was also editor of the Broadcasting & Cable Yearbook and principal editorial writer.

Born in Texas and raised in New Mexico, West’s first brush with electronic communications was running a recording studio as a teenager. He became, successively, a radio transmitter engineer, managing editor of a small-town daily newspaper — the Roswell (New Mexico) Record — and as wire editor of the El Paso (Texas) Times, before serving as an artillery sergeant in the Korean War.

Also Read: ‘B+C’ Marks a Milestone

A graduate of New Mexico A&M College, West came to Washington with an eye on law school but a heart still in journalism.

He joined Broadcasting’s then-Washington headquarters in 1953, transferring to the  New York bureau in 1958 as manager.

When Broadcasting bought the monthly Television magazine in 1960, West was named managing editor and VP.

In 1966, he joined CBS as assistant to network president Frank Stanton, rejoining Broadcasting in 1971 as managing editor, again based in Washington.

The banner on the editorial page once read ”Committed to the First Amendment and the Fifth Estate,“ and the same could be said of West. 

In his editorials, as well as speeches, writing and appearances at industry events, he carried on the fight for a broadcast medium as free as print, which meant free from micromanaging by political interests. 

While broadcasters, particularly in tough economic times, have been tempted to forego that fight and accept a compromised First Amendment as a quid pro quo for the protection of their business and avoidance of further regulation, West never counseled such expedience and the expense of the speech protection they, and the public, deserved.

West was also instrumental in the creation of the Broadcasting+Cable Hall of Fame. 

He exited the magazine in 2001. He joined the board of the Library of American Broadcasting Foundation in 2003 and became president, creating the Giants of Broadcasting & Electronic Arts awards. In 2015, West was honored as one of those giants.

His bio for the award notes that as a young Roswell newspaperman, West “was distinguished by missing the biggest story of the century when, as the first reporter at the site of the fabled Roswell alien invasion, he found nothing to report.”’ 

That could not be said for a 40-plus year career covering electronic communications that earned him plaudits from some other giants of the business.

“Don was a force in the industry in his own right and a tireless advocate for full First Amendment Rights for broadcasters,” Preston Padden, a former top News Corp. and The Walt Disney Co. executive and one-time head of the Association of Independent Television Stations (INTV) in Washington, said.

“It’s hard for folks today to comprehend how influential Broadcasting was under Don back in the day,” C-SPAN CEO Susan Swain said.

“I first met Don West during my FCC days and, thereafter, we had many wonderful lunches and discussions about broadcasting-related issues,“ former Federal Communications Commission chair Dick Wiley said. “Don was a terrific journalist who knew the broadcast industry — and everyone in it — from top to bottom. He was also a great advocate for applying First Amendment rights to the electronic media, a cause he supported during his entire career. He was one of the very best. RIP.”

In 1992, top executives in the communications business weighed in on West's impact on the industry.

“Few men or women in the broadcast and editorial world have had such a profound and lasting impact on the world of communications,” Jack Valenti, then-president of the Motion Picture Association of America, said. “He has oftentimes shaped the agenda for public leaders, and more than often clarified opaque, complicated issues for those who want to understand what the future may hold.”

“Don is the consummate professional and one of the best editors in the business,” said Robert Daly, then-chairman of Warner Bros.

“As editor of Broadcasting Magazine, [West] has shown insight and vision in his objective coverage of the emergence and development of the cable television industry,” wrote CNN and Turner Broadcasting System founder Ted Turner. “He has proved himself to be a true leader among journalists.”

“In my 50 years of working with editors of industry publications, none has come close to Don West for sheer knowledge of the business, for integrity, for leadership, and for style,” Stanton, the former CBS president, wrote in 1992. “Except for a brief interval during which he was my assistant at CBS, West’s life belonged to Broadcasting, the magazine, and broadcasting, the communications phenomenon of the century.”

A Celebration of Life is planned at a date to be determined. 

It was probably inevitable Congress would start looking into the move of sports to streaming platforms.

Pay TV knows the feeling of being the free TV spoiler when it comes to sports siphoning, in that case from broadcast — think Monday Night Football’s move to ESPN — but now multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) are the ones complaining about losing access to big-ticket sports.

That was made clear at what was described as an “educational” hearing, titled “TV Timeout: Understanding Sports Media Rights” in the Communications and Technology Subcommittee on Wednesday (January 31).

Also Read: The Game’s on Cable

“One of the most pressing issues facing the video industry is the migration of key sports programming from pay TV to the ‘direct-to-consumer’ offerings of the largest programmers, like Peacock, Amazon, and WarnerMedia,” DirecTV chief content officer Rob Thun said.

The current flashpoint was the January 13 Peacock-exclusive Kansas Chiefs-Miami Dolphins NFL wild card playoff game.

Rep. Kathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), chair of the parent Energy & Commerce Committee, called it a streaming-only game, but technically that was not the case since it was available via broadcast in the teams' home markets, as is the case with Monday Night Football (though the Hollywood writers and actors strikes led to ABC simulcasting most games this season).

Rodgers also cited Amazon’s deal with the Bally Sports regional sports networks for MLB, NBA and NHL games. She even cited scripted sports siphoning, with Netflix as the new home to WWE’s Monday Night Raw.

Subcommittee chairman Bob Latta (R-Ohio), called the “transition” of sports to streaming a “pivotal shift” and cited the Peacock exclusive, pointing out that it was the most streamed event in U.S. history.

But he also pointed out that the Peacock platform’s comparatively limited reach made it the least-watched playoff game so far this year.

“[I]f sports programming is the lifeblood of our media ecosystem, we must ask what it means if this valuable content increasingly moves from local broadcast stations to national platforms, like most streaming services,” ranking member Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) said. 

Both Pallone and Latta signaled Congress would also be looking to get educated on the impact of the escalating cost of sports rights, which has been driven by the expanded competition for rights among broadcast, cable and streaming.

“Escalating sports licensing fees have been a major driver of increasing pay TV costs, even for consumers who don’t watch sports,” said Pallone, offering one of the arguments long made by fans of a la carte programming. “This has contributed to cord-cutting.”

He added: “[T]he rise of online streaming options, including games that air exclusively online, has caused significant confusion among consumers, with 60% saying they have trouble finding the games they want to watch.” 

Recently, the Federal Trade Commission heard an earful from a range of industry leaders at a hearing on the agency’s proposed “Click-to-Cancel” regulations, which aim to impose wide-ranging regulations to govern how subscription-based businesses must interact with their customers. The most compelling objection came from the cable industry, which pointed out — quite accurately — that its sign-up and cancellation practices are already closely regulated by a separate federal agency. 

Congress first granted the Federal Communications Commission a mandate to regulate the cable industry nearly four decades ago. In the years since, Congress has repeatedly reinforced that authority — including via 1992’s Cable and Television Consumer Act and 2019’s Television Viewer Protection Act (TVPA) — to ensure the FCC has the power to regulate precisely the kind of business practices on which the FTC has now set its sights. 

For example, under FCC rules, cable operators must maintain a customer service line 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and answer calls within 30 seconds. Cable operators must disclose the total monthly charge for service to consumers before entering a contract — and explicitly note the amount of any promotional pricing and when it expires. Within 24 hours of entering the contract, the provider must send this same information by email or online link and give consumers a 24-hour window to then cancel with no penalties. The TVPA also requires electronic bills to include information about charges and fees, the termination date of any promotional discount and the termination date of the contract. 

I’ve seen firsthand, as former chief of the FCC’s Cable Services Bureau, how the commission’s broad regulatory oversight in these areas effectively empowers it to protect consumers and investigate and punish any bad actors. Decades of close oversight has built within the FCC an in-depth, nuanced comprehension of the sector and the specific protections its customers need.  

By contrast, the FTC’s envisioned rule paints all industries with the same broad brush. A sweeping, “one-size-fits-all” proposal that sees no difference between cable TV service and scammy subscription businesses will cause confusion and may result in unintended negative consequences for consumers. 

Undoubtedly, there is need in other industries for the FTC’s proposed rule. Cast in the most favorable light, perhaps the FTC’s efforts could be viewed as that agency’s effort to do for the rest of the digital economy what Congress and the FCC have already done and continue to do for cable customers; that is, ensuring consumers have full disclosure of all the key facts — prices, terms and conditions — they need to make informed choices, and then making sure they can easily reach their providers if they want to modify service. Assuming that’s the FTC’s goal, it should take the logical step to exempt the cable industry from its proposed rules, rather than just overlapping the FCC’s efforts in ways that could lead to innumerable headaches and costs for both providers and their customers. 

The FTC’s proposal, for example, would likely lead to cable customers receiving less-relevant information and fewer options compared to the FCC’s current regime. In fact, the proposed rule strictly forbids any business from even offering a departing customer a better price or special offer without first asking and receiving their explicit permission to extend such an offer. Intentionally restricting a company’s ability to offer customers discounts or other benefits is hardly an intuitive approach to consumer protection. A key component of making informed decisions is not only access to information before signing up, but also access to information before canceling. 

The FTC’s simplistic, one-size-fits-all approach is particularly ill-suited for complex offerings like cable service, for which consumers can generally personalize their choices from a menu of bundled services, channel packages and speed tiers. Subscribers often opt for discounted packages with specific terms, and if a customer cancels early or cancels only one service in the package, the discount may be revoked. Restricting a provider’s ability to clearly explain those consequences could lead to subscribers unintentionally canceling desired services. 

The FCC’s long-established approach to protecting cable consumers is informed through decades of oversight and expertise and rooted in core principles of transparency, disclosure and consumer choice. The FTC should direct its efforts to those industries not already subject to comprehensive, industry-specific consumer protections. 

Former News Corp. executive and current Fox critic Preston Padden has filed a copy of a New York state court ruling to buttress the challenge to Fox Corp.'s ownership of WTXF Philadelphia. Padden, a longtime executive working for Fox chairman emeritus Rupert Murdoch, called for designating the license renewal for hearing before an administrative law judge, given the court's ruling.

Manhattan State Supreme Court Justice David Cohen on Wednesday (January 24) refused Fox's petition that the court dismiss an amended complaint in voting machine company Smartmatic USA’s lawsuit against the company and Fox News Channel on-air figures Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro, as well as Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, surrogates for former President Donald Trump. Smartmatic accused Fox of spreading misinformation about its equipment and its role in the 2020 election.

Also Read: Ervin Duggan, Bill Kristol Back WTXF License Challenge

The court said the amended complaint was accepted because it sufficiently supported allegations that Fox employees “acted with malice by purposely and deliberating publishing knowingly false stories about plaintiffs [Smartmatic voting machines] in order to benefit Corp.’s financial interests.”

The Media & Democracy Project, citing Fox’s settlement of the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit over similar election misinformation, last year challenged the renewal of WTXF at the Federal Communications Commission — and, by extension, the company’s character qualifications for holding any TV station licenses at all.

Given the conduct of Fox News employees surrounding false claims about voting machine irregularities, it said Fox lacked the character to hold that license — and, by extension, all of its TV station licenses.

Losing those licenses would be a huge financial hit. By its own count, Fox owns 29 full-power TV stations, including in 14 of the top 15 biggest markets, and owns duopolies — two stations — in each of the top three markets in the country, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

In filing a copy of that court decision with the FCC, Padden pointed out that the malice allegation in the court decision was the same one Media & Democracy was making at the agency in its license-renewal challenge and argued for the regulator “at the very least” designating the license for hearing.

But there were two decisions from the court this week, Fox pointed out in an email. The court also dismissed a petition to dismiss Fox Corp's counterclaim. 

That counterclaim is that plaintiff's request for $2.7 billion in damages from Fox was “calculated to chill defendants’ free speech rights” because the figure bore no relation to the company’s “actual worth and possible future profits.”

“Plaintiffs do not establish that there has already been a binding determination that their claims [against News Corp.] have a substantial basis in fact,” the court said, adding that News Corp.’s claims that the damages are “so extenuated from their actual lost profits that they were pleaded and/or sought in order to chill defendants’ free speech rights” has yet to be adjudicated in court.

“We will be ready to defend this case surrounding extremely newsworthy events when it goes to trial, likely in 2025,“ Fox said in a statement. “As a report prepared by our financial expert shows, Smartmatic’s damages claims are implausible, disconnected from reality, and on their face intended to chill First Amendment freedoms.”

Netflix is again using the FCC’s net neutrality rulemaking to argue that interconnection fees charged by large internet service providers — for connecting Netflix and other unaffiliated streamers to their end users — are potentially anti-competitive and must be either eliminated or closely monitored.

The Federal Communications Commission’s proposed net neutrality rules focus on nondiscriminatory access by subs over the network’s last mile to the home or business rather than the connections among the internet backbone and interconnecting networks, but also view interconnection fees as potentially anti-competitive.

In imposing the 2015 net neutrality rules, the Democratic-led FCC did say ISPs could potentially exploit the points at which their terminating access networks link with other networks and the last-mile connection to subscriber homes, Netflix pointed out.

Also Read: No Numbers From Comcast for Peacock’s NFL Playoff Game Impact

The current FCC, in proposing to reimpose the rules, also said ISPs should be prohibited “from charging edge providers a fee to avoid having the edge providers’ content, service or application ‘blocked’ or ‘throttled.’”

Netflix definitely agrees.

As part of ensuring an open internet, Netflix told the FCC in comments on the proposed return of network neutrality rules that the regulator may want to prohibit such “access” fees to make sure that its content, and that of other edge providers, does not get “blocked or throttled.”

That’s because Netflix claims it has to pay those fees to larger ISPs to prevent them from creating congestion for Netflix traffic to favor an ISP’s own affiliated services.

As an example of the kind of streaming content an affiliated ISP could potentially favor, Netflix used the Comcast-owned Peacock streaming service and its groundbreaking, streaming-exclusive carriage of the January 13 Kansas City Chiefs-Miami Dolphins NFL wild-card playoff game, which research firm Antenna said drew the most subscription signups in streaming history. 

Access to big-ticket sports has long been a flashpoint for access to content.

To make sure content from unaffiliated edge providers like Netflix isn’t blocked, the company said, the FCC must monitor complaints about anti-competitive interconnection conduct on a case-by-case basis under the bright-line rules banning blocking or throttling.

The fact that ISPs have control over allowing other providers or content platforms to interconnect with their network via “peering” and “transit” agreements gives them the ability and opportunity to “exploit the size of their networks to impose ‘selective’ interconnection policies,” Netflix said. 

While Netflix said most ISPs interconnect “cooperatively and efficiently,” large ISPs, particularly vertically integrated ones, have the power to anticompetitively exploit their control over connections by “either (1) degrading the quality of their competitors’ content or (2) increasing their competitors’ costs.” 

Broadcasters are finding they increasingly have the government's backing when it comes to promoting the importance of local news and information.

The House has just passed the Protect Reporters from Exploitative State Spying (PRESS) Act (H.R. 4250), which protects journalists from government attempts to compel them to reveal sources or to access their work product.

Cable broadband operators would also benefit because the bill protects broadband and phone-service providers from having to reveal the contents of documents or communications created by journalists, with carveouts for imminent harm or terrorism.

That move comes as Congress continues to consider a bill that would allow broadcasters and other news outlets to collectively negotiate payment from websites for the right to aggregate and reuse their valuable content, and as the Federal Communications Commission is proposing to require rebates from MVPDs when subscribers lose access to their TV stations’ local news and information and other content due to retransmission consent-related blackouts.

The FCC also voted to incentivize broadcast local news production by prioritizing applications for new stations or license transfers from broadcasters who certify that they provide locally originated programming.

The PRESS Act must still pass the Senate, but the National Association of Broadcasters was praising the important House vote.

“NAB applauds the House for passing the PRESS Act, underscoring the vital importance of freedom of the press,” NAB president and CEO Curtis LeGeyt said. “This legislation acknowledges the critical role of journalists in our democracy — from exposing injustices to educating and informing the public. The PRESS Act protects journalists' ability to maintain confidential sources, ensuring they can perform their duties without the threat of retaliation.”

He urged the Senate to “quickly” pass the bill. 

The Federal Communications Commission has voted along party lines to proceed with its proposal to require cable and satellite pay TV providers to provide rebates to consumers for programming blacked out during retransmission consent-related disputes.

Democrats billed the move as a consumer-focused effort to preserve viewers’ access to programming they have paid for through their cable or satellite subscription, while Republicans called it a form of rate regulation and of using the FCC’s authority to regulate customer-service issues in a marketplace where viewers have plenty of video alternatives — notably streaming services — if they are unhappy with the way cable operators or broadcasters do business.

The FCC has approved a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) on rebates, which means it is seeking comment on the proposal, after which it will decide whether — though more likely simply how — to implement the new rule.

Back in October, FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel floated the proposal to put the onus on pay TV providers to inform the agency if a broadcast channel they carry has gone dark for an extended period due to a retransmission-consent impasse and to refund subscribers for those extended blackouts.

Her goal, she signaled, was to use the FCC’s power to put an end to blackouts.

The NPRM seeks comment on requiring MVPDs to notify viewers of any blackouts lasting more than 24 hours and mandating customer rebates for those interruptions. It seeks input on whether and how cable and satellite operators would provide the rebates, and whether to require pay TV providers to notify the FCC via an online public portal after a blackout has gone on for more than 24 hours.

Broadcasters argue that those blackouts are an unfortunate consequence of a marketplace negotiation in which pay TV distributors are reluctant to sufficiently compensate them for their high-value programming. Many MVPDs have countered that those blackouts are 1) the result of broadcaster bad-faith bargaining; 2) anti-consumer; and 3) not in the public interest, which broadcasters are licensed to serve.

Cable operators are under no obligation to carry TV stations unless those broadcasters elect to forego any compensation in exchange for carriage under the FCC’s must-carry rules. Stations who believe their content is sufficiently valuable to warrant compensation can negotiate for payment, but if they can't get a deal they cannot then assert must-carry rights.

As a result, when TV stations and MVPDs fail to come to terms on retransmission fees, those stations can withhold their signals until a deal is struck. Sometimes those blackouts can last days or weeks. That often leads to viewer complaints, particularly when things like coverage of local pro or college sports teams are affected.

Though broadcasters say taking their signals down when a contract expires without a deal is part of that marketplace negotiation, Rosenworcel clearly sees it as an unfairly anti-consumer practice.

“Enough,” Rosenworcel said in a statement. “When consumers are saddled with a blackout like this, I think they deserve a refund. They should not be asked to shell out for programming that they were promised but are unable to watch. This rulemaking is about fairness."

Republican commissioner Nathan Simington, in his dissenting statement, said the FCC lacks the authority to impose the rebates and should not do so even if dies have the authority.

Simington argues that a rebate won’t save consumers any money because of how it changes — he would argue “distorts” — the marketplace dynamic. 

Likely seeing the re-regulatory handwriting on the wall, cable internet service providers have told the FCC just how it should reclassify broadband as a Title II service and what it should and shouldn’t do when it reimposes new net neutrality rules, as it is expected to do after a suitable timespan following the public comment period on its reclassification proposal.

In reply comments to the Federal Communications Commission (due January 17), NCTA – The Internet & Television Association continued to argue against either reclassification or the return of rules against blocking, throttling and anticompetitive paid prioritization, which it said are illegal (beyond the agency’s authority), unnecessary, burdensome and counterproductive to the goal of universal broadband.

Also Read: Former Democratic Iowa Official Opposes Net Neutrality Rules

But given that a Democratic majority supports the return of broadband regulatory authority, NCTA told the FCC just where to go on the path to regulating its internet access service. That includes preempting any state attempts to go beyond the FCC rules, as well as not applying the rules to interconnections between ISPs and streamers like Netflix.

Netflix has long argued for interconnection neutrality, saying the fee ISPs charge streamers for such connections are an arbitrary tax levied by powerful ISPs that control streamers' access to their subs and the quality of the video they deliver.

NCTA, joined by over a half-dozen state associations, said if the FCC goes ahead with the plan, it should do the following:

1. Provide exceptions for reasonable network management;
2. Permit usage-based billing and zero-rating;
3. Refrain from extending those rules to non-BIAS [broadband internet access service] data services or internet interconnection and traffic exchange arrangements;
4. Avoid drawing “unwarranted” distinctions between broadband technologies (as in, apply it to wireless, fixed wireless, satellite-delivered broadband or any other broadband delivery technology).
5. Forbear from all Title II provisions that would authorize the FCC to regulate rates and mandate unbundling, as well as from other “burdensome and ill-fitting” provisions of Title II.
6. Preempt state and local regulation of broadband services and reject proposals to deem any federal framework as merely a “floor,” “as such an approach would only invite states and localities to attempt to override federal policy determinations.”

NCTA pointed out in its comments that the Democrat-led imposition of net neutrality rules in 2015 included a directive that states “could not disturb [the FCC’s] ‘carefully tailored regulatory scheme’ by regulating more or less stringently.” It said the regulator should follow the same course.

Now that reply comments have been received, FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel can schedule a vote on a final order as soon as those comments have been sufficiently vetted.

Patty Judge, a former Democratic lieutenant governor and state agriculture secretary in Iowa, said the FCC’s plan to reclassify internet access as a common carrier and impose net neutrality regulations will hurt, not help, the effort to close the rural digital divide.

She made that case in reply comments to the Federal Communications Commission (the deadline is Wednesday, January 17), a copy of which was supplied by Focus on Rural America, a self-described progressive advocacy group that Judge co-founded.

Judge spoke out strongly in support of letting internet service providers “get the job done” of closing the digital divide, a task she called “daunting at best and near impossible at worst.”

“Apart from driving away private investment and adding regulatory burdens to an already complex buildout process,” she said, sounding more like a cable lobbyist than a former Democratic state official, “the FCC’s proposal will simply result in — as two former Obama Administration Solicitors General put it — ‘a massive waste of resources for the government, industry, and the public, as well as the lost opportunity to pursue more pressing policy goals such as deploying robust broadband service to all Americans.’ ”

Those former solicitors general, Donald B. Verrilli Jr. and Ian Heath Gershengorn, are even higher-profile Democrats who weighed in strongly against common-carrier reclassification in their own comments back in September. 

Judge told the FCC that while “disparities in connectivity across the nation continue to grow more stark between rural and urban communities” and the agency’s proposed new rules against blocking, throttling and anticompetitive paid prioritization are a “misguided effort that takes attention away from our collective goal: achieving universal connectivity, especially for unserved, rural areas that have been cut off from digital opportunities for far too long.”

While she praised the FCC for efforts to close the digital divide, particularly getting last-mile connections to rural communities, Judge said that “significant internet regulatory changes masked under an ‘open internet’ title only pull us further away from reaching a fully connected rural America.”

The Federal Communications Commission said it will run out of money to fund the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), the largest such broadband subisdy in U.S. history, by April of this year unless Congress acts. The program has provided billions of dollars in subsidies that go to internet-service providers for providing service to rural and other communities lacking sufficient high-speed broadband.

The commission Thursday (January 11) issued an order detailing how that broadband subsidy program would be wound down, a process that has begun given that Congress has so far failed to extend the program's funding.

FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel, who has urged continued funding, wrote to Congress on January 8, saying more money was needed so the program “can continue to support the households that rely on it and reach others that may be on the wrong side of the digital divide.”

Currently, there is a bipartisan bill in Congress, the Affordable Connectivity Program Extension Act, that would extend the funding and save the program.

Also Read: FCC Approves Rules for ACP Broadband Subsidy

The $14.2 billion ACP program, part of the Biden administration's effort to close the digital divide by decade’s end, provides subsidies of up to $30 per month toward broadband service (up to $75 for tribal communities) and up to $100 toward a broadband access device, excluding smartphones.

That is money that goes to the ISPs providing that service, so it is a program broadband operators are solidly behind.

Rosenworcel has pointed out that if the funding runs dry, “millions of households” will lose the benefit and some 1,700 internet service providers will be affected.

Not surprisingly, ISPs were speaking out in support of the new funding.

“[We] urge Congress to swiftly approve the Affordable Connectivity Program Extension Act of 2024,” NCTA–The Internet & Television Association said. “With the internet such an integral part of our daily lives, ensuring the ACP has adequate funding is a critical national priority.”

Jonathan Spalter, president of telco trade group USTelecom, said: “The ACP helps nearly 23 million low-income American households access affordable, reliable broadband. [D]espite the program’s immense success, its funding is expected to run out in a matter of months. The ACP Extension Act of 2024 is a critical and common-sense step towards keeping these millions of families online and fulfilling our nation’s bipartisan commitment to bridging the digital divide once and for all.”

The Communications Workers of America, the union representing workers for whom the ACP funding means more work, was also speaking out. “We urge Congressional leaders to support this funding request and to work with us to ensure that internet service remains affordable for everyone,” the CWA said in a statement. 

Cable operators and local governments have been sparring over how the Federal Communications Commission regulates the relationship between cable/broadband service providers and local franchising authorities (LFAs). Specifically, they’re at odds over what cable operators can charge local governments for services rendered under franchise agreements and whether LFAs can charge fees on the broadband portion of mixed-use — cable and broadband — providers.

Cable operators clearly don't want the FCC to start taking a bite out of their broadband revenue as they transition away from traditional video service and as those broadband revenues start representing a greater piece of the total pie.

But with a new Democratic FCC majority, local governments are looking to roll back some of the franchise-fee deregulation instituted in 2019 during the Republican administration of former President Donald Trump. 

Buoying the LFA effort was a court decision remanding that fee-deregulation decision back to the FCC with instructions to fix some things the agency has yet to take action on. It doesn't hurt that the current FCC chair, Democrat Jessica Rosenworcel, dissented from that 2019 decision, saying it was a way to cut local authorities out of the picture when it comes to infrastructure. Current Democratic commissioner Geoffrey Starks was also a "no" vote in 2019.

In meetings with FCC officials last week, according to commission documents, attorneys for a bunch of local franchising authorities called for the commission to quickly launch a rulemaking responding to the remand by:

1. repealing the mixed-use rule;
2. “clarify[ing]” that an LFA should only have to pay for the marginal cost of its use of an institutional network and not the construction cost for a network that serves small businesses and other nonresidential users.

The mixed-use rule states, “A franchising authority may not regulate the provision of any services other than cable services offered over the cable system of a cable operator, with the exception of channel capacity on institutional networks.”

That means no broadband-related fees.

Attorneys for franchisors said such a prohibition impedes the congressional and FCC goal of promoting "widespread and non-discriminatory broadband deployment."

They pointed out that local governments can require broadband-only providers to obtain a franchise and pay a fee based on revenue, but a cable operator supplying both traditional video and broadband is not required to pay a fee on its broadband revenue no matter what share of those monies come from internet service.

Responding to LFA calls to ax the mixed-use rule, NCTA-The Internet & Television Association said the charge that the rule impedes closing the digital divide is “groundless,” as is the suggestion that it needs to be axed to satisfy the court remand.

In the 2017 Montgomery County (Maryland) v. FCC decision, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found the FCC could not use its mixed-use rule to bar LFAs from requiring franchisees to provide noncable services because that would appear to prevent LFAs from regulating institutional networks, which statute clearly allows them to do.

The court also concluded that the FCC had not sufficiently justified why it had expanded its definition of franchise fees to include non-cash (in-kind) requirements by LFAs, thus counting such arrangements toward the 5% cap on franchise fees. The court vacated those portions and remanded them back to the FCC for action, if necessary.

The FCC, under Republican chair Ajit Pai, responded with a further notice of proposed rulemaking telling the court that the “mixed-use network ruling should be applied to prohibit LFAs from using their video franchising authority to regulate non-cable services offered over cable systems by incumbent cable operators,” which includes internet access services, and clarifying that localities can still regulate institutional networks.

NCTA said the remand can be resolved simply by amending the rule to “strike the phrase ’at their fair market value’ and substitute ’marginal cost.’ ”

Contrary to the LFAs’ claims, there is no need or basis to reopen the [FCC’s decision] with respect to the mixed-use rule,” NCTA told the commission.

The Supreme Court has scheduled oral arguments on what tech companies are billing as their version of a challenge to “must-carry” laws, statutes that they say are unconstitutional threats to their First Amendment freedom.

The high court’s decision could determine the future of social media and other edge providers to moderate their content.

The court has scheduled combined oral argument for February 26 on Moody v. Netchoice (and CCIA) and Netchoice (and CCIA) v. Paxton. Those are legal challenges to similar Republican-backed Texas and Florida laws that would require websites to carry third-party content whether or not they wanted to.

The Texas law, which passed a Republican-controlled legislature in 2022, “prohibits an interactive computer service from censoring a user, a user’s expression, or a user's ability to receive the expression of another person based on ... the viewpoint of the user or another person.” It also requires large social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to disclose how they manage content, to publish an acceptable-use policy that users can find telling them what content is acceptable, to publish quarterly transparency reports and to have a complaint system in place.

The Florida law, which was also passed by a Republican majority legislature, limits websites’ immunity from civil liability over third-party content under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. It removes that civil-liability protection for Big Tech platforms like Facebook or Twitter, including allowing for monetary damages up to $250,000 per day for deplatforming political candidates for statewide office,and $25,000 per day for candidates for nonstatewide offices.

The laws are in part a response to Republican claims that edge providers have been censoring conservative speech.

In response to the high court’s announcement of the oral argument calendar, the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), said that the challenged statutes “would force digital service providers to publish all third-party content, without editorial discretion, or face onerous regulatory burdens. These ‘must-carry’ laws violate the First Amendment by stripping private companies of their right to curate, organize, and display online content.”

Also Read: Court Says Texas Content Moderation Law Can Go Into Effect

If that argument sounds familiar, it was the one cable operators made to the court in Turner v. FCC, the 1994 court challenge to the FCC’s pay TV must-carry rules, which require cable operators to carry broadcast TV stations in their market whether or not they want to give up valuable channel space.

Cable operators said pay TV must-carry was an unconstitutional taking of their channel property, as well as government-compelled speech that undercut their editorial independence.

Also Read: Big Tech Says Texas Law is Big Mistake

CCIA branded the state laws as “must carry” even though the Supreme Court in Turner held that forced carriage passes constitutional muster if it furthers an important government interest and is narrowly tailored.

“The Constitution’s free speech right protects the editorial discretion of websites and digital services from government intervention,” CCIA president Matt Schruers said. ”Content moderation is not only an essential trust and safety function, it is a First Amendment-protected activity. After years of litigation, CCIA looks forward to having our constitutional challenges heard in the Supreme Court.”

Al Jazeera Journalist Hamza Dahdouh and freelancer Mustafa Thuraya were killed Sunday (January 7) in an Israeli airstrike in the Western part of Gaza, according to Al Jazeera.

Dahdouh was the son of Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief, Wael Dahdouh, whose wife Amna; grandchild Adam; son Mahmoud, and seven-year-old daughter Sham, were killed in an airstrike back in October.

According to the news outlet, Hamza Dahdouh and Thuraya were in a supposed "safe area," and were targeted by Israeli forces, a charge that the Committee to Protect Journalists has been leveling given the large number of journalist deaths, most of them Palestinians killed in Israeli airstrikes.

The journalists were said to be trying to interview displaced civilians when they were killed.

CPJ says that more journalists have been killed -- 77 was the count before Sunday's deaths -- in the 10 weeks of this war than in a year in any single country since CPJ has been keeping track of journalists deaths.

Of that 77, says CPJ, 70 were Palestinian.

"CPJ is particularly concerned about an apparent pattern of targeting journalists and their families by the Israeli military," CPJ says. "In at least one case, a journalist was killed while clearly wearing press insignia in a location where no fighting was taking place."

The Council on American-Islamic Relations Sunday called on the Biden Administration to condemn what it said was Israel's targeting of journalists.