Draft media ownership rules circulated 13 months ago were yanked from circulation recently by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, said agency, industry and public interest officials in interviews Friday. The draft order first circulated by then-Chairman Julius Genachowski and thought to have been largely unchanged when now-Commissioner Mignon Clyburn was acting chairwoman would have ended some cross-ownership bans, which cheered some broadcasters and daily newspaper owners and upset some groups critical of media mergers and acquisitions. The rules, to TV stations’ chagrin, would have made it harder for them to enter into joint sharing arrangements that JSA foes say evade media ownership limits (CD Nov 15/12 p1).
The Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee’s work on spectrum sharing in the 1695-1710 MHz and 1755-1850 MHz bands was a long, sometimes painful process, but yielded some good results, members of CSMAC and the industry working groups said during a lessons-learned meeting Friday. The process led to what is expected to be the eventual opening of the 1755-1780 MHz band for commercial use, a band long targeted by wireless carriers. Sharing, as opposed to exclusive use, has been a top focus of the Obama administration (CD June 17 p1).
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler made the broadcast incentive auction more feasible by delaying it Friday (CD Dec 9 p1), but the first-of-its-kind auction won’t be easy, according to interviews Monday with former chairmen of both parties, broadcast and wireless lawyers and public-interest officials. They said not holding the auction until mid-2015, later than the 2014 then-Chairman Julius Genachowski planned, gives Wheeler more time to resolve issues like limits on bidding for the top-two U.S. carriers and holding two other wireless spectrum auctions this year.
The Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)’s formation of a panel on the future of global Internet cooperation in mid-November came in the midst of an increasingly important debate over the future of multistakeholder Internet governance, said stakeholders in interviews last week. “The future of Internet freedom really is at a crossroads,” said former FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell, a member of the new panel. Although ICANN was a catalyst for the group’s formation, the group is independent of ICANN (CD Nov 19 p17).
A U.S. proposal that could curtail what so-called social welfare groups spend on ads about political candidates on the Internet, radio and TV and put on their websites is raising concerns among some industry lawyers and advocates for disclosure by such 501(c)(4) tax-exempt groups. The advocates want such ads considered “political intervention” and subject to limits for a longer period before elections than being proposed Friday by the Treasury Department and IRS. And an advocate and a lawyer for tax-exempt groups doesn’t think online communication should fall under that limit as the agencies proposed in an NPRM. Broadcast lawyers said they worry the rules if put into place could limit spending by groups other than candidates in the runup to elections, which has been a growth area for TV stations. That’s all according to interviews with those experts Wednesday.
More than two-thirds of respondents to a Do Not Track working group survey voted not to define the term “tracking.” While there was minimal support for two options, a robust majority expressed objections to both (http://bit.ly/1hXS2TF). There was also little support for a definition of “party” in a separate poll (http://bit.ly/1hXVlKg). Just over half of respondents to that poll opted not to define “party,” and nearly three-quarters objected to the definition receiving the most support. Both surveys closed Wednesday night.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said Friday unlicensed spectrum has a big role to play and the commission will make sure it gets its due as the agency finalizes rules for the TV spectrum incentive auction. Wheeler, in his fifth day as chairman, made a surprise appearance at the beginning of an FCC workshop on unlicensed issues tied to the auction.
Tom Wheeler was sworn in Monday as chairman of the FCC and Michael O'Rielly to the open Republican slot on the commission. Wheeler, who had all summer to think about first steps as chairman, almost immediately appointed his top staff at the agency, starting with Ruth Milkman as chief of staff (http://fcc.us/HFgesN). Industry observers said the choice of Milkman, who was Wireless Bureau chief, signals continuity on one of the top issues Wheeler faces, the incentive auction of broadcast TV spectrum. Several of those appointed worked for Wheeler in the past and most came from jobs where past entanglements are unlikely to pose ethics issues.
Oct. 28 FCC monthly meeting, 11:30 a.m., rescheduled from Oct. 22, Commission Meeting Room -- http://fcc.us/1gqLlbQ
Broadcast lawyer John Hane warned Tuesday that the incentive auction could fail if the FCC doesn’t get things right. “There are many, many, many paths to failure and only a fairly narrow set of paths to success,” said Hane of Pillsbury Winthrop during a panel at an Institute for Policy Innovation conference.