By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 12-10-19 The House has passed a compromise bill, HR 5035, the Television Viewer Protection Act (TVPA), that would make permanent the mandate that broadcasters and MVPDs negotiate in good faith.  That mandate sunsets at the end of the year unless renewed.  But the bill does not renew the [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 12-9-19 With billions of political ad dollars on the line, broadcasters are working hard to make sure a new FCC ruling does not take even a little bite out of their share of that likely record political pie. At an NYC Television Week panel in New York, Kantar’s [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 11-21-19 Wrapping up a long two days, the House Energy & Commerce Committee approved a handful of bipartisan broadband and tech-related bills on a variety of topics, from broadband mapping and network security to freeing up spectrum. There were a handful of amendments adopted without opposition as the [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 11-21-19 House Energy & Commerce Communications Subcommittee chairman Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) and ranking member Greg Walden (R-Ore.) reached agreement on a STELAR reauthorization bill that then passed a full-committee markup Nov. 20, but the bill does not reauthorize the compulsory distant signal license, a major piece of the [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 11-20-19 The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit won't review a three-judge panel decision throwing out much of the FCC's broadcast ownership deregulation order according to a court document obtained by B&C. The full court did not explain why it would not review the decision, but [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 11-18-19 Some top Senate Democrats, including on Commerce and Judiciary, have released a set of core privacy principles they say should underpin any new federal legislation. Legislators on both sides of the aisle have said they support comprehensive privacy legislation, driven in no small measure by their concerns [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 11-18-19 House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) has introduced yet another version of a STELAR renewal bill, the "Satellite Television Community Protection and Promotion Act (STCPP) of 2019.” There are already Senate Commerce and House Energy & Commerce versions of a bill that would renew the satellite [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 11-18-19 The Department of Commerce has extended for another 90 days the license that allows U.S. companies to continue to supply tech – like chips – to Chinese telecom Huawei, even though Commerce put the company on the list of entities "engaged in activities that are contrary to [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 11-18-19 In the wake of a hearing two weeks ago on Big Tech and its ties to China, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) has introduced the National Security and Personal Data Protection Act which would attempt to stem the flow of info to that and other countries that pose [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 11-15-19 Republican FCC Commissioner Michael O'Rielly said that the FCC's outstanding proposal to classify over-the-top (OTT) platforms as MVPDs is the sort of "zombie" proceeding the FCC should finally kill off. O'Rielly made that proposal in a speech to the Massachusetts Broadcasters Association Thursday (Nov. 14). The FCC [...]