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 [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 2-14-23 The Federal Trade Commission's only Republican commissioner, Christine Wilson, is resigning “soon,” but has said it is not over policy differences with chair Lina Khan, but instead over what she said was Khan’s “disregard for the rule of law” and the staff Wilson said are enablers of that [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 2-9-23 Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) have reintroduced a bill that would reregulate cable franchise fees. The Protecting Community Television Act would “clarify” that the 5% cap on a cable franchise fee applies only to monetary “assessments” and not in-kind contributions. “In 2019, the FCC allowed [...]
By Elizabeth Parks, President & CMO, Parks Associates Since its inception, OTT has represented independence from the traditional MVPD bundle. However, without the bundle, consumers are left to fend for themselves, with some getting overwhelmed by the number of available options. As it turns out, some level of bundling is helping consumers by offering flexibility [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 2-7-23 President Joe Biden took Big Tech to task, and got in a shot at cable fees, in his State of the Union speech Feb. 7, with Big Tech getting the brunt of the criticism. He said that hidden surcharges or “junk fees” add up to hundreds of dollars [...]
Participated in an amicus brief (with the Reporters Committee and other amici) filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in U.S. v. Team Finance. The brief supports researcher Loren Adler, whose motion to intervene in a medical billing fraud case for the limited purpose of unsealing judicial documents was denied [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 2-1-23 Social media, including short-form video site TikTok, continues to be in the hot seat in the new Congress, particularly as it relates to children’s health. Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah), who last Congress introduced the Stop Online Suicide Assistance Forums Act (it has Democratic support), which would make it [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 1-31-23 Groups representing the nation’s libraries and other anchor institutions say that the FCC’s new draft broadband map misrepresents public libraries. The Federal Communications Commission says the map represents the parameters set up by Congress. The Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband (SHLB) Coalition, the American Library Association and the [...]