The FCC should hold an open forum with broadcasters to discuss whether they should voluntarily stop using the name “Redskins” for Washington’s NFL team, said a group of former Democratic FCC officials and communications attorneys, academics and activists in a letter sent to acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn Thursday. Former FCC Chairman Reid Hundt -- one of the letter’s co-signers -- said it had its genesis in a discussion he had with Minority Media and Telecommunications Council President David Honig, who also signed the letter. “We decided a disparagement of one minority group is a disparagement of all minority groups,” said Hundt in an interview. An FCC forum on the Redskins name “need not answer any questions of legality nor necessarily lead to regulatory intervention,” said the letter. Instead, the forum would focus on “self-regulation” by broadcasters and its application to the Redskins’ name. “The FCC has unquestioned authority to convene an open forum with broadcasters to discuss whether they should voluntarily stop using the name,” said the letter, citing several media personalities who have said they will no longer use the word “Redskins.” Those who signed the letter “hope that an open forum hosted by the FCC will encourage broadcasters to follow suit,” said a news release issued by Hundt. By using its authority to convene the forum, the FCC “has the opportunity to act as a principled and transparent leader during a time of distressing difficulty in the nation’s capital,” said the letter. The letter was signed by former FCC commissioners Jonathan Adelstein, Nicholas Johnson and Tyrone Brown, Ambassador Karen Kornbluh, former FCC Chief of Staff Blair Levin, former FCC General Counsel Christopher Wright now of Wiltshire Grannis, public-interest attorney Andrew Schwartzman, who consults for Free Press, Charles Firestone of the Aspen Institute, former NTIA administrators Henry Geller and Larry Irving, Communications Workers of America Telecommunications Policy Director Debbie Goldman, Wiltshire Grannis telecom lawyer John Nakahata, Best Best municipal lawyer Nicholas Miller, the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development and others.
The partial federal government shutdown may not mean that the Senate won’t act on the nominations of Tom Wheeler as chairman of the FCC and Michael O'Rielly for its open Republican seat, said industry lobbyists in interviews Tuesday. After all, they said that senators will continue to work and draw a salary with few hearings to attend because many hearings were canceled because some government witnesses can’t attend. The level of enmity among senators appears lower than that between Democrats and Republicans in the House.
FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai will vote against an NPRM seeking comment on eliminating the UHF discount on TV station ownership at the commission’s open meeting Thursday, a spokesman for his office told us. The item will likely still be approved on the strength of votes from Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel and acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn, said an FCC official. Neither commissioner’s office commented.
Two chairs of House panels that oversee the FCC don’t want the elimination of the UHF discount to “punish business” by affecting existing ownership groups or pending transactions, they said in a letter to acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn Thursday (http://1.usa.gov/1aHA9VF). “Specifically, we are concerned that elimination of the UHF discount could inequitably harm those broadcast owners with pending transactions that were initiated under the existing UHF discount rule,” said House Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., and Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore.
FCC Chairman nominee Tom Wheeler is expected to arrive at the agency sometime later this year with an ambitious agenda, but the time he will have in office is limited and several issues loom which could take up much of his first year. Industry and FCC officials told us that then-Chairman Julius Genachowski did Wheeler no favors by staying into May rather than leaving after the end of Barack Obama’s first term as president. Several industry officials who have spoken with Wheeler said he has a big agenda, but is all too aware that he will have limited time as chairman.
The FCC faced tough questioning Monday as judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit asked if the open Internet order afforded ISPs enough flexibility to escape being treated as common carriers. Judge David Tatel suggested FCC General Counsel Sean Lev had conflated the agency’s own theories, and not defending the rules as they are actually written. By the end of the two-hour oral argument in Verizon v. FCC, two of the three judges said they couldn’t see how the antidiscrimination provision of the net neutrality rules was anything other than an impermissible common carriage restriction.
The FCC faced tough questioning as judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit asked if the open Internet order afforded ISPs enough flexibility to escape being treated as common carriers. Judge David Tatel on Monday accused FCC General Counsel Sean Lev of conflating the agency’s own theories, and not defending the rules as they are actually written. By the end of the two-hour oral argument in Verizon v. FCC, two of the three judges said they couldn’t see how the antidiscrimination provision of the net neutrality rules was anything other than an impermissible common carriage restriction.
Wednesday’s 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Time Warner Cable, NCTA v. FCC (CD Sept 5 p4) vacating the standstill rule on procedural grounds indicated the agency would be within its rights to resurrect it, experts said. But the FCC might face a steep court battle in doing so, said foes of the rule including the then-commissioner who voted against it, in interviews last week. The standstill rule, created in a 2011 order, let commission staff authorize continued carriage of a channel involved in a program carriage complaint while a decision is pending (CD Oct 4 p3).
If a panel of appellate court judges decides the FCC has no authority to enforce its open Internet order, another federal agency could take its place, several industry officials said in recent interviews. With its expertise in consumer protection and antitrust issues, the FTC is ideally positioned to take over if the net neutrality rules fall, industry and FTC officials have said publicly and in interviews. It’s by no means a common assumption. Many fear that, with its more case-by-case approach to resolving competitive harms, the FTC would be an inadequate protector of an open Internet.
If a panel of appellate court judges decides the FCC has no authority to enforce its open Internet order, another federal agency could take its place, several industry officials said in recent interviews. With its expertise in consumer protection and antitrust issues, the FTC is ideally positioned to take over if the net neutrality rules fall, industry and FTC officials have said publicly and in interviews. It’s by no means a common assumption. Many fear that, with its more case-by-case approach to resolving competitive harms, the FTC would be an inadequate protector of an open Internet.