By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 8-1-19

National Association of Broadcasters President Gordon Smith said the government should start applying a public interest standard to Google and Facebook and other Big Tech titans.

That was in an interview for C-SPAN’s Communicators series with  C-SPAN’s Peter Slen and Paul Kirby, senior editor at TRDaily and Telecommunications Reports.

Broadcasters have always been licensed in the public interest, which the FCC reviews, including various inherent and explicit obligations, when it grants those licenses or allows them to be sold.

Asked his take on Big Tech, Smith said Big Tech’s private interests may no longer be in the public interest because they “buy up competition, bury competition, and stifle innovation and investment” because it is in their self-interest to do so.

Smith said the Googles and Facebooks of the world are definitely media companies, airing programming and competing for ads and eyeballs. He welcomed the antitrust review the DOJ’s antitrust division is launching against Big Tech.  » Read More