By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 6-4-19 The House Judiciary Committee is opening a bipartisan, "top to bottom," investigation into Big Tech and whether it has been allowed to get big anticompetitively. The committee has announced a series of hearings in the Antitrust Subcommittee on the "rise of market power online" and is seeking [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 6-3-19 In a letter to the chair and ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, the Copyright Office has once again recommended that Congress let the satellite compulsory copyright license (STELAR Act) expire, saying the Section 119 copyright license "is more ripe for expiration than ever." The act, [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 6-3-19 ACA Connects gave the Federal Trade Commission an earful in comments on the FTC's hearings on competition and consumer protection. ACA Connects said that, generally speaking, the broadband marketplace is working to consumers' benefit as is with 300 million people having access to 100 Mbps broadband service, [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 5-22-19 The Senate Judiciary Committee took a hard look at digital advertising Tuesday (May 21), both from a standpoint of privacy and whether edge providers who are supported by the use of data for ads, are too big to be trusted not to abuse that power and not [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 5-21-19 A clear majority of viewers do at least some of their video watching online rather than, or in addition to, broadcast or cable. That is according to the analysis of 2017 numbers crunched by the Trump Administration's top communications advisory arm, the National Telecommunications & Information Administration [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 5-21-19 The reconfigured T-Mobile-Sprint deal appears to have the three votes needed to secure approval by the five-member FCC. That came after the companies volunteered a revised list of conditions that included divesting Boost Mobile, the low-cost prepaid wireless subsidiary; building out high-speed 5G wireless service to most [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 5-9-19 Drug companies will have to disclose the list price to patients for prescription drugs and biological products in their TV (broadcast, cable and satellite) and online ads. That is according to a final rule published by the Department of Health and Human Services, part of the Trump [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 5-7-19 National Telecommunications & Information Administration Administrator David Redl said the country needs to change its approach to spectrum policy. One way to do that, a new national spectrum strategy he is helping implement, should be out soon, he said this week. But he also said another big [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 5-3-19 First-year senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who has made hammering Big Tech his signature issue, provided a Hoover Institute audience Thursday with a dystopian view of social media as an addiction that imperils its users and "sucks" the brightest minds to the coasts – abandoning flyover country – [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 5-2-19 Department of Justice antitrust chief Makan Delrahim provided a number of breadcrumbs that broadcasters and advertisers can follow on the trail to what changes DOJ may or may not make to its view of the competitive advertising market when it comes to merger reviews. Justice and the [...]