By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable, 5-22-23 President Joe Biden has nominated Anna Gomez to fill the long-unfilled third Democratic seat on the Federal Communications Commission. Gomez is a veteran communications attorney and policy adviser who has been on the corporate and government sides of policy debates. The nomination comes as a package deal [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable, 5-22-23 After more than a year of trying to get the deal done, TEGNA said that as of May 22, its merger agreement with Standard General has been terminated and it can collect a $136-million breakup fee. May 22 was the deadline for Standard General’s financing of the [...]
By Robert Barnes and Cat Zakrzewski, washingtonpost.com, 5-18-23 The Supreme Court ruled May 18 that the families of terrorism victims had not proved Google, Twitter, and Facebook helped foster attacks on their loved ones, and handed a greater victory to the tech industry by declining to weigh in on a protective internet law at [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 4-13-23 Democrats on the House Energy & Commerce Committee have a lot of unanswered questions about embattled short-form video site TikTok that they want the company to clear up, but they have also given the social media outlet some input on how it might save itself amid calls for [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 4-11-23 The Biden Administration is looking to potentially regulate artificial intelligence (AI) and algorithmic processes. On April 11, the National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA), the White House’s chief communications policy advisory arm, put out a request for comment on just how that might come about…. Among the government [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 3-16-23 The Federal Communications Commission has proposed extending its audio description mandate to TV stations in all markets by 2035, unanimously approving a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (FNPRM) that would make that the case. The issue is one Chair Jessica Rosenworcel is intimately familiar with from her days [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 3-14-23 The Federal Communications Commission has asked for a budget increase of a little more than 5% for fiscal 2024, given inflation and its goal of getting broadband to 100% of the U.S. in an equitable and inclusive way. In its budget request to Congress, the FCC said its [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 3-10-23 The FCC’s authority to auction spectrum was set to expire March 9 after the Senate failed to pass a bill to extend it, prompting bipartisan pushback from House leadership. The House last month passed H.R. 1108, which at least would have extended the Federal Communications Commission’s authority to [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 3-7-23 Democratic FCC nominee Gigi Sohn has asked President Joe Biden to withdraw her nomination after battling for most of two years against a concerted effort to block her from joining the agency, saying that battle and what she saw as ad hominem attacks, had taken too heavy a [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 2-21-23 The Supreme Court has officially waded into the white-hot debate over how much Section 230 liability protection the law provides Big Tech for its online content organization and moderation efforts. And – if the justices’ questions are any gauge – that challenge as presented has a high hill [...]