The Prometheus Radio Project asked that its petition for a ruling requiring the FCC follow the diversity requirements of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals be uncoupled from other court challenges to the FCC 2014 quadrennial review Further NPRM, said a motion filed in the U.S Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Friday. Such rulings, called Writs of Mandamus, are sometimes used to compel agencies to take specific actions. The D.C. Circuit is already considering a motion from Prometheus to move the consolidated court challenges to the quadrennial review and the commission’s joint sales agreement attribution rule to the 3rd Circuit (CD Sept 10 p22), but the mandamus request should be considered separately, said Georgetown Law Institute for Public Representation Senior Counselor Andrew Schwartzman, who represents Prometheus. That venue change is under consideration by a D.C. Circuit merits panel, but the order shifting the matter to the panel was silent on the mandamus issue, Schwartzman said. The mandamus request should be shifted to the 3rd Circuit regardless of what happens to the other parts of the case since it concerns that circuit’s remand to the FCC that “the Commission failed to collect the data or conduct the studies necessary” to meet the Third Circuit’s requirements, said Prometheus’s filing
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Broadcasters asked the FCC not to require Comcast and Time Warner Cable to disclose sensitive retransmission consent information as part of the combining cable companies’ response to the agency’s recent request for more information on the deal, said a letter posted Monday in docket 14-57 (http://bit.ly/1sVbe42). Though such documents would be treated as confidential and redacted to anyone not a party involved in the proceeding, said the letter addressed to Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake from E.W. Scripps, Gray Television, LIN Television, Nexstar and Sinclair, it asked that FCC officials instead view the agreements at the Department of Justice. “Given the large number of parties to this proceeding, we have many concerns about the potential widespread dissemination of these extremely competitively sensitive documents, even if only among outside counsel,” said the broadcasters.
Three petitions to deny AT&T’s plan to buy DirecTV cite implications for public, educational and government (PEG) channels, competition and the public interest. The petitions by public interest groups and groups representing the PEG community were filed in docket 14-90. AT&T again said the new company would create a stronger competitor to the cable bundle. Comments in the proceeding were due Tuesday.
Three petitions to deny AT&T’s plan to buy DirecTV cite implications for public, educational and government (PEG) channels, competition and the public interest. The petitions by public interest groups and groups representing the PEG community were filed in docket 14-90. AT&T again said the new company would create a stronger competitor to the cable bundle. Comments in the proceeding were due Tuesday.
Three petitions to deny AT&T’s plan to buy DirecTV cite implications for public, educational and government (PEG) channels, competition and the public interest. The petitions by public interest groups and groups representing the PEG community were filed in docket 14-90. AT&T again said the new company would create a stronger competitor to the cable bundle. Comments in the proceeding were due Tuesday.
FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai urged the commission to repeal the sports blackout rule at its Sept. 30 meeting. The government shouldn’t intervene in the marketplace “to help sports leagues enforce their blackout policies,” he said in an op-ed on Gannett-owned Cincinnati.com (http://cin.ci/1uMG6q0). He rejected arguments from rule advocates that leagues might televise their games only on cable or satellite TV, saying the leagues’ contracts with over-the-air broadcasters are enduring. By moving games to pay-TV, “the NFL would be cutting off its nose to spite its face,” he said. While leagues would remain free to negotiate deals with broadcasters and pay distributors to enforce the blackout policy without the rule, “taking the government’s thumb off team owners’ side of the scale would create momentum for a more accessible sports experience,” he said. There’s broad support for lifting the sports blackout rule, “and the FCC appears ready to accommodate that wish,” said public interest attorney Andrew Jay Schwartzman. In proposing to repeal the rule, the FCC took the view that the goal of Congress in requiring the open video systems and direct broadcast satellite blackout rules was to achieve parity with cable, he said in a Benton Foundation blog post (http://bit.ly/1uBhmmg). If the commission were to repeal the cable rule, “it would fulfill the congressional goal of parity by repealing the other two rules as well,” he said.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler isn’t seen as having made a decision on Comcast’s proposed buy of Time Warner Cable, said analysts, cable industry and public interest officials in interviews this week. Ex-FCC Chief of Staff Blair Levin doesn’t believe a decision on the merger has yet been made, he said in a conference call. The Department of Justice will decide if the deal should be approved, he said. Wheeler “may know where he’s leaning” but it’s “inconceivable” he would decide the fate of the deal before the Sept. 23 due date for Comcast and TWC’s opposition filings, said Georgetown Law Institute for Public Representation Senior Counselor Andrew Schwartzman. The FCC is also awaiting responses from Comcast, Charter Communications and TWC to the Media Bureau’s detailed information requests related to the deal and to Charter’s buying divested systems (CD Aug 26 p1), which were due Thursday, Schwartzman said. “Even if he made a decision, he doesn’t necessarily have the three votes” needed for a majority vote on the FCC, Schwartzman said.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler isn’t seen as having made a decision on Comcast’s proposed buy of Time Warner Cable, said analysts, cable industry and public interest officials in interviews this week. Ex-FCC Chief of Staff Blair Levin doesn’t believe a decision on the merger has yet been made, he said in a conference call. The Department of Justice will decide if the deal should be approved, he said. Wheeler “may know where he’s leaning” but it’s “inconceivable” he would decide the fate of the deal before the Sept. 23 due date for Comcast and TWC’s opposition filings, said Georgetown Law Institute for Public Representation Senior Counselor Andrew Schwartzman. The FCC is also awaiting responses from Comcast, Charter Communications and TWC to the Media Bureau’s detailed information requests related to the deal and to Charter’s buying divested systems (WID Aug 26 p5), which were due Thursday, Schwartzman said. “Even if he made a decision, he doesn’t necessarily have the three votes” needed for a majority vote on the FCC, Schwartzman said.
NAB’s legal challenge of an FCC Media Bureau public notice announcing processing guidelines for deals involving TV broadcaster sharing arrangements was dismissed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. NAB’s petition for review was dismissed because the PN was issued on delegated authority, and should have been challenged at the commission-level before being brought to the court, said a D.C. Circuit order. To obtain judicial review of an order issued by FCC staff pursuant to delegated authority, the association was required to fulfill the “condition precedent” of filing an application for review by the FCC of the bureau’s decision, and to wait until the FCC ruled on the application, the order said. The difficulty of obtaining judicial review of the processing guidelines was likely why they were issued under delegated authority, industry attorneys had told us (CD March 14 p9). Since the FCC has to vote to hear applications for review of bureau-level decisions, they can be indefinitely stalled, the attorneys said. NAB had argued that several letters filed with the FCC asking it to review the processing guidelines were a sufficient stand-in for an application for review (CD June 5 p16) but the court disagreed. Because of the dismissal, a motion from Prometheus Radio Project and other groups to consolidate the case with the other sharing arrangement proceedings was declared moot in the same order. Associated court challenges by the NAB to the FCC’s rules for attributing joint sales agreements and by Prometheus to the closing of the 2010 quadrennial review remain active, said Georgetown Law Institute for Public Representation Senior Counselor Andrew Schwartzman, who represents Prometheus.
The FCC Enforcement Bureau under Chairman Tom Wheeler and acting Chief Travis LeBlanc has shown a willingness to go after companies that violate agency rules with more aggressiveness than in the past, said agency and industry officials in recent interviews. They said LeBlanc has taken a particularly hard line, refusing to consider reductions in penalties if a company won’t acknowledge wrongdoing and declining to allow language in consent decrees that a company was making a “voluntary” contribution to the government as part of the agreement. The latter change is significant since “voluntary” contributions can often be deducted as business expenses on tax returns, but the Internal Revenue Code explicitly forbids deduction of penalties.