By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 4-14-17 There was plenty of praise for the FCC's official conclusion of the broadcast incentive spectrum auction Thursday with a public notice full of stats relayed by FCC officials, but FCC Commissioner Michael O'Rielly was focused on what happens next for broadcasters. The FCC also announced the new channel assignments [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 4-12-17 An association representing edge provider powerhouses met with FCC chairman Ajit Pai Tuesday to argue for preserving the FCC's Title II-based Open Internet order.  That comes as Pai is pondering how to roll back Title II, including by potentially having ISPs sign on to voluntary Open Internet principles that [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 4-10-17 The International Broadcaster Coalition Against Piracy (IBCAP) and NAGRA (Kudelski Group), which provides content protection for video, have extended and expanded their agreement to combat the distribution of pirated international and multicultural TV content in the U.S. That will include creating a "monitoring" lab to root out [...]

By John Eggerton, Multichannel News Online, 3-28-17 In a victory for ISPs, advertisers and tech companies that had opposed the new FCC's broadband privacy rules, the House voted primarily along party lines 215 to 205 Tuesday (March 28) to repeal those rules, with only the President's signature needed to make it official. More than a [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 3-27-17 The end is coming this week for the broadcast incentive auction. The reverse auction (broadcaster portion of the auction) has been over since Jan. 18, but the assignment-phase auction for forward auction bidders is scheduled to close March 30. That is the follow-up auction where forward auction [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 3-24-17 FCC chairman Ajit Pai Friday praised Charter for its announced $25 billion infrastructure investment pledge over the next four years, which came at an Oval Office photo op Friday with President Donald Trump and even took some credit for the new regulatory climate Charter's Tom Rutledge said [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 3-21-17 In a victory for broadcasters, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has reversed a lower court decision that FilmOn X was eligible for the same compulsory license to TV programming as cable operators have. In the decision, released Tuesday, the [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 3-20-17 In a response to Senate Democrats that was short on elaboration, Republican FCC chairman Ajit Pai said he did not believe the media was the enemy of the people and promised to exercise his media regulatory authority impartially. “As Chairman of the FCC, I take my oath [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 3-17-17 To be or not to be defined as an MVPD, that is the question. A federal appeals court Friday heard argument in the long-running court battle between TV station content providers and FilmOn X, and, according to an attorney at the lively and lengthy oral argument, bothsides [...]