Aereo v. ABC remains too close to call (CD April 21 p3) after oral argument at the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday, said several communications attorneys who attended the hearing in follow-up interviews. They said a decision, which may be 5-4, seems likely to hinge on what’s safest for the cloud computing industry.
Aereo v. ABC remains too close to call (WID April 21 p6) after oral argument at the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday, said several communications attorneys who attended the hearing in follow-up interviews. They said a decision, which may be 5-4, seems likely to hinge on what’s safest for the cloud computing industry.
Aereo v. ABC remains too close to call after oral argument at the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday (CED April 21 p1), said several communications attorneys who attended the hearing and gave follow-up interviews. They said a decision, which may be 5-4, seems likely to hinge on what’s safest for the cloud computing industry.
The Telecom Act has many features that no longer make sense in the video market, said representatives of broadcasters, multichannel video programming distributors and public interest groups in interviews. “Competition in video is broken,” said Fletcher Heald broadcast attorney Frank Jazzo, pointing to the uneven regulations that apply variously to broadcasters and MVPDs, and the act’s failure to account for over-the-top competitors. “The act as written doesn’t take into account the changes in technology” in the video realm, said BakerHostetler cable attorney Gary Lutzker.
The FCC made joint sales agreements attributable for ownership calculations and kicked off the 2014 ownership quadrennial review with a 3-2 vote split along party lines, at Monday’s open meeting. Commissioners Ajit Pai and Mike O'Rielly voted against what Pai called “a thumb in the eye of Congress.” As expected (CD March 28 p1), the new JSA rule gives existing arrangements where one company accounts for more than 15 percent of another’s sold advertising time two years to be unwound and includes an expedited waiver process, the Media Bureau said. The FNPRM that begins the new ownership proceeding incorporates the 2010 quadrennial review, seeks comment on changes to cross-ownership rules and proposes rules for requiring disclosure of shared service agreements. Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said JSAs had been used to skirt the commission’s rules, though the ownership rule change is “admittedly not perfect.” Chairman Tom Wheeler praised it for closing “an end run around the rules” that allowed large companies to amass too much market power.
The largest inmate calling service (ICS) providers submitted Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) challenges in response to the FCC inmate calling order. That order required all ICS providers to submit information about their costs to provide interstate, intrastate toll and local service, and associated costs for interconnection fees, equipment investment and forecast data. Annual reporting requirements would add 101 hours per year for each ICS provider to respond, said the FCC. In comments to the Office of Management and Budget, ICS providers called the estimate unrealistically low.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s use of delegated authority reached a high point of sorts last week when AT&T’s buy of Leap Wireless was approved by the Wireless and International bureaus, rather than by commissioner vote (CD March 14 p5), officials said. Commission Democrats Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel complained internally that they would have preferred a commission vote on that deal, which gave one of the two biggest wireless carriers control of an important prepaid service player, FCC officials told us. Republicans Ajit Pai and Mike O'Rielly have complained about other items being approved on delegated authority, agency officials said.
A Media Bureau public notice Wednesday announcing that pending and future transactions that involve sharing arrangements and include right of first refusal purchasing options or loan guarantees will receive extra scrutiny (http://fcc.us/OoNg4k) is a message to broadcasters that such deals won’t be approved, several communications attorneys told us. The message comes from Chairman Tom Wheeler, who industry observers said is behind the PN, which was issued on delegated authority over the objections of two commissioners two weeks before the March 31 meeting at which a full rulemaking on the same topic is anticipated.
In just over four months as FCC chairman, Tom Wheeler has developed a reputation for mixing with staff, eating lunch in the commission lunchroom. Agency officials say he’s much quicker to head for another commissioner’s office for a meeting than was his immediate predecessor Julius Genachowski. He has also been willing in some cases to cut deals with the FCC’s two Republicans, Mike O'Rielly and Ajit Pai. But agency and industry officials tell us with huge issues looming, from media consolidation to spectrum aggregation, Wheeler is likely to also prove that on the issues most important to him, he’s not afraid of 3-2 votes.
Increased competition in the video industry may have undermined the basis for must-carry rules, argued Latham Watkins cable attorney Matthew Brill at a Federal Communications Bar Association continuing legal education event Monday evening. Recent federal court opinions in cable program carriage cases Comcast v. FCC (CD May 29 p1) and Time Warner, NCTA v. FCC (CD Sept 5 p4) have said that cable’s decreasing market power is eroding the legal basis for many of the provisions from the 1992 Cable Act designed to protect broadcasters, Brill said. Along with recent program carriage cases, the FCBA event touched on Aereo’s case before the Supreme Court.