By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 4-27-20 With every pandemic-driven, shelter-in-place day feeling like Groundhog Day, it is appropriate that the deadline for the latest installment of the endless broadcast deregulation saga has come due. The FCC has been trying to come up with a deregulatory regime that passes muster with the Third U.S. [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 4-18-20 FCC chairman Ajit Pai has asked the chairman of the House Energy & Commerce Committee to speak out against Free Press's emergency petition to the FCC to stop what that group said was "right-wing personalities" spreading disinformation about the pandemic. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) had asked Pai [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 4-17-20 As expected, broadcasters and newspaper publishers have petitioned the Supreme Court to review the Third Circuit Court of Appeals decision vacating most of the FCC's effort under chairman Ajit Pai to deregulate broadcast ownership, including by eliminating the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rules. Echoing the FCC's petition for Supreme [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 4-16-20 The Committee to Protect Journalists said President Trump's attacks on press credibility have been "dangerously effective," even as the pandemic kills tens of thousands of Americans. It has issued a report on Trump (penned by former Washington Post executive editor Len Downie) and the media and has [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 4-13-20 The FCC is seeking comment on how it should square its approach to preventing Universal Service Fund money from going to carriers that use Huawei and ZTE technology with Congress' mandate to do the same thing. The Wireline Competition Bureau Monday (April 13) sought comment on the [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 4-13-20 Broadcasters are giving new meaning to the phrase "dynamic spectrum access" in arguing that an FCC proposal to free up WiFi spectrum in the 6 GHz band could take away electronic newsgathering spectrum just when a pandemic-sequestered nation needs it most. That came in phone calls last [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 4-9-20 Republican FCC commissioner Michael O'Rielly has asked President Trump to lean on the Department of Defense to free up spectrum for 5G. That came in an April 8 letter to Trump from O'Rielly, who is a fan of the President. O'Rielly praised the President's "extraordinary leadership" on [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 4-9-20 The FCC is encouraging TV stations to keep the faith, literally, during the current COVID-19 pandemic. The commission is allowing those stations to preempt educational and informational children's programming for religious programming without having to reschedule it, but only over the next three weeks.  FCC chair Ajit [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 4-1-20 FCC chairman Ajit Pai is proposing to open the entire 6 GHz band for unlicensed wireless broadband. He has drafted rules that would make all 1,200 MHz available for some unlicensed devices, which would share with incumbent users including broadcast electronic newsgathering (ENG). Broadcasters had argued that [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 3-31-20 Comcast has teamed with Common Sense Media to make free educational content available. There are almost 2,000 hours of titles for its Xfinity customers with kids in K-12 via Xfinity on Demand, the company said. That includes content from Bluprint and CuriosityStream, as well as content from [...]