A provision in the FCC’s incubator program order that allows broadcasters to receive ownership waivers in markets comparable to the one in which they incubate a new broadcast owner “threatens to destroy” the entire program, said members of the Advisory Committee on Diversity and Digital Empowerment, in a call with Matthew Berry, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s chief of staff. “The notion that a market with fewer than 350,000 people and 63 stations is in any sense ‘comparable’ to a market of over 19,000,000 people with 153 stations is new to communications law,” said Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Senior Adviser David Honig and National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters President James Winston in the filing. Honig and Winston said they called Berry on behalf of fellow committee members DuJuan McCoy, CEO of Bayou City Broadcasting, and former FCC Commissioner Henry Rivera, now with Wiley Rein. No notice was provided during the proceeding of the FCC’s definition of a comparable market, and the definition “was not a logical outgrowth of any earlier proceeding,” the filing said. “The incubation proposal would suddenly have been converted into little more than an engine of large market consolidation."
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai appoints Babette Boliek, Pepperdine University law school professor and associate dean-faculty research who will take a leave from there while she's at the commission, as agency's chief economist, succeeding Jerry Ellig, returning to academia, now as research professor at George Washington University, affiliated with Regulatory Studies Center; also Monday, Pai names to Advisory Committee on Diversity and Digital Empowerment: current ACDDE Vice Chair Diane Sutter, ShootingStar Broadcasting, to chair, succeeding Julia Johnson, NetCommunications, who resigns from committee; Anna Gomez, member of Digital Empowerment and Inclusion Working Group, from Wiley Rein, as vice chair-member of the full committee; and Susan Au Allen, member of the empowerment and inclusion group from U.S. Pan Asian American Chamber of Commerce, as full member, ACDDE.
Pirate radio operators should watch out because the FCC will stop you, Commissioner Mike O’Rielly told a Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council conference Thursday. Commissioner Brendan Carr also spoke at the conference on a panel with O'Reilly, taking questions from former Chairman Richard Wiley of Wiley Rein.
FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr said a telehealth inquiry's facilities-based focus is aimed at advancing broadband access through a pilot program, but is open to discussion. At a Wiley Rein event Wednesday, Carr outlined his views on a draft notice of inquiry to provide up to $100 million for "connected care" pilot projects slated for a vote Aug. 2, and agency efforts to make wireless regulation "5G ready" and modernize media regulation.
Bill Colwell, 48, assistant general counsel of Northrop Grumman, died Sunday of cancer. The expert in government contracts, who used to work for Boeing and Wiley Rein, had been on the Federal Circuit Bar Association board. He was married to Robin Colwell, who worked for FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly before going to the House Communications Subcommittee as a key staffer. "Bill Colwell was a wonderful person, a devoted father, and the best partner imaginable for my former chief of staff, Robin," O'Rielly said Monday. Colwell's also survived by twin daughters, a brother, and his mother and grandmother. Funeral Mass is Friday at 11 a.m. at St. John the Beloved in McLean, Virginia, followed by a reception at the Columbus Club of Arlington.
Manatt adds to privacy and data security practice with Ingrid Beierly, ex-Visa, as senior adviser-cyber and global payment security; John Treviño, ex-BT Americas, as counsel; and Peter Reid, ex-Hewlett Packard Enterprise, as senior adviser ... National Technical Systems moves up Rich Adams to president-CEO and Hector Paez to chief operating officer ... Consultant Ian Greenblatt, also ex-Arris, joins J.D. Power as Technology, Media and Telecom Practice lead.
Fiber Broadband Association hires Lisa Youngers, ex-Nextlink, as executive director, effective July 9, succeeding President-CEO Heather Burnett Gold, retiring (see this section's Nov. 13 edition) ... FCC Incentive Auction Task Force Senior Adviser-Communications and Policy Charlie Meisch left the agency for SKDKnickerbocker, which hired him as vice president and director-technology practice ... Sustainable Electronics Recycling International promotes Corey Dehmey, who directed its R2 standard, to executive director, succeeding John Lingelbach ... Mintz Levin hires from Morrison & Foerster for Corporate & Securities practice Scott Stanton as member; expertise includes software and semiconductors.
The shift to online public files for radio and TV made it easier for the FCC to catch broadcasters in violations, and is expected to lead to increased disclosures of late or misfiled documents when license renewals come around next June , broadcast attorneys said in interviews. Broadcasters saw online public files as a way to increase convenience and pave the way for eliminating the main studio rule, but the increased scrutiny of fillings is an unintended consequence, said Fletcher Heald's Steve Lovelady. “Given that the contents of the online public file can be viewed by anyone, anywhere, just by launching an Internet browser, we would expect more complaints about incomplete files, and more scrutiny by the FCC,” blogged Wilkinson Barker's David Oxenford.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruling against the FTC on LabMD was called an important decision and bad for the agency. The commission can't require a company to completely overhaul its data security program but can ban specific acts or practices (see 1712070068), an 11th Circuit panel ruled Wednesday. The FTC sued the now-defunct diagnostic cancer lab in 2013 for unfair data security practices. The ruling said the FTC improperly mandated LabMD’s complete overhaul and charged the district court with managing the overhaul. “This is a scheme Congress could not have envisioned,” the panel said. “We therefore grant LabMD’s petition for review and vacate the commission’s order.” TechFreedom President Berin Szoka said Thursday the court’s decision shows the FTC “has been acting unlawfully for well over a decade” and calls into question the validity of past data security consent decrees. The commission didn’t comment. Wiley Rein called it “an important milestone and inflection point for” new agency leadership: “This case raised issues going to FTC power and practice, but ultimately turned on the remedy imposed by the agency which was found to be so vague as to be unenforceable.” The agency can ask for a full 11th Circuit review en banc or Supreme Court review. Judges Gerald Bard Tjoflat, Charles Wilson and Eduardo Robreno made up the panel and Tjoflat wrote the opinion.
Several net neutrality advocates don't plan to seek a stay of the FCC order undoing Communications Act Title II broadband service regulation. They told us Tuesday they aren't aware of any who will seek a stay, with the order to take effect Monday. Some have warned that Monday will mark the start of declines in internet freedom, which Republicans and other net neutrality deregulation backers say is overblown and untrue.