By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 10-10-18 FCC commissioner Michael O'Rielly pitched Kentucky broadcasters on his proposal to deregulate children's TV rules. Generally broadcasters support a lighter touch, but O'Rielly's pitch was delivered with some tough love. In a speech to the Kentucky Broadcasters Association, O'Rielly ticked off stats showing that kids are increasingly [...]
By InsideRadio, insideradio.com, 9-19-18 A sweeping update to federal music licensing law, including changes that could impact how much radio pays to songwriters in the future, cleared a significant hurdle late Tuesday. In a unanimous voice vote, the Senate approved the Music Modernization Act (S. 2823) leading to a chorus of celebration in the music [...]
By Craig Timberg, Tony Romm, Devlin Barrett, and Brian Fung, washingtonpost.com, 9-5-18 The Justice Department warned on Wednesday that leading technology companies may be “intentionally stifling the free exchange of ideas” and hurting competition, an ominous development for an industry already under fire from Capitol Hill, President Trump and a range of conservative critics. The [...]
By Brian Fung, washingtonpost.com, 8-31-18 California lawmakers rallied enough votes Friday to pass the nation’s toughest net neutrality law to prevent Internet providers from favoring certain websites, setting up a fight with federal regulators who voted last year to erase such rules. If Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signs the law in the coming weeks, California [...]
By Darlene Superville and Barbara Ortutay, AP, washingtonpost.com, 8-29-18 WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump is accusing Google and other U.S. tech companies of rigging search results about him “so that almost all stories & news is BAD” – and though he is offering no evidence, a top adviser says the White House is “taking a [...]
By Michael Farrell, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 8-6-18 The U.S. Department of Justice has given a heads up on its plans to appeal the June U.S. District Court decision that paved the way for completion of AT&T’s $108.7 billion merger with Time Warner, claiming in a court filing that the presiding judge in that case [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 8-1-18 The battle lines are drawn in the fight over net neutrality, at least in terms of the court schedule for filing briefs on both sides of the issue, and it looks like there will be no decision until sometime in 2019. That is according to the U.S. [...]
By Ann E. Marimow, washingtonpost.com, 7-31-18 The Washington region’s transit system can bar religious messages on its buses and trains and in its stations, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday as it upheld Metro’s policy prohibiting issue-oriented advertisements. The ruling in Metro’s favor from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 7-25-18 The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has declined to overturn the FCC's restoration of the UHF discount on the grounds that the parties challenging it – Free Press, Prometheus Radio – did not have standing to bring the challenge. That could be a big [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 7-12-18 A politically divided FCC has voted 3-1 to launch a revamp of its children's television rules. Those are the 1996 rules that implement the Children's Television Act, which obligated TV stations to air educational and informational children's TV programming. The FCC is proposing to eliminate the requirements [...]