Netflix announced Friday an agreement to buy Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion after the latter company spins off Discovery Global, but the deal could face regulatory hurdles at the FTC or DOJ, and the combination has been criticized by lawmakers of both parties.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr cracked self-deprecating jokes about his relationship with President Donald Trump, the uproar over his conflict with Jimmy Kimmel, and his colleagues on the commission during his first address as chairman at the annual FCBA dinner Wednesday night. Directly across Massachusetts Avenue from the event at Washington’s Marriott Marquis hotel, Free Press, Public Knowledge and Tech Freedom projected criticisms of the Carr administration onto the front of the Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church.

National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) voiced concerns about a planned Senate Intellectual Property Subcommittee hearing Tuesday on whether to levy a performance royalty on stations playing music on terrestrial radio, saying Thursday that the meeting “could be used to conflate” that issue and expected congressional action on the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act (HR-979/S-315). Congressional leaders scrapped a bid to attach a previous version of the measure to a continuing resolution to extend federal appropriations last year after House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., pressed to simultaneously add the American Music Fairness Act, which would institute a terrestrial performance right (see 2412180033).

Telecom carriers are changing how they work together and cooperating on making application programmable interfaces (APIs) available to customers, speakers said Thursday during a TelecomTV conference. They also warned that while carriers are anxious to find new business lines, much about how the future will look remains unclear.

Chairman Charlie Ergen and others from EchoStar met with FCC Chairman Brendan Carr and his aides to emphasize that the company didn’t want to sell its spectrum licenses to AT&T and SpaceX (see 2509090036) but was left with little choice, according to an ex parte filing posted Thursday. Meanwhile, EchoStar and AT&T jointly defended the deal in a separate filing posted Thursday in docket 25-303.

Communications Daily is tracking the lawsuits below involving appeals of FCC actions.

California’s continuing interest in VoIP regulation is a concern, and the lack of FCC preemption of state VoIP oversight is proving to be a problem, speakers said Wednesday at a vCon conference about AI and telecom issues. Also at the event, Ecommerce Innovation Alliance (EIA) President David Carter said the e-commerce industry, faced with rocketing amounts of “shakedown litigation" about texts sent during quiet hours, is anxiously hoping that the FCC will act soon on the group's 9-month-old petition for a declaratory ruling (see 2503030036). An agency affirmation that prior consumer consent means those texts don’t violate the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) “should have been a no-brainer,” Carter said.

Satellite-based internet is unavoidable as part of the BEAD program, speakers agreed Wednesday during a Broadband Breakfast webinar. Steven Hill, president of the Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association, and David Zumwalt, president of WISPA, downplayed concerns that BEAD will lead to “two tiers” of broadband, with fiber on top and other alternatives not as good. While most BEAD money is still expected to fund fiber, as much as 15% will pay for fixed wireless and 20% for low earth orbit satellite broadband, speakers said.

House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said Wednesday that he's demanding that CBS News Ombudsman Kenneth Weinstein investigate whether President Donald Trump improperly influenced and coerced the network’s editing of a 60 Minutes interview that aired in early November.

The House Commerce Committee advanced the American Broadband Deployment Act (HR-2289) Wednesday by a closer-than-expected 26-24 party-line vote, with unified Democratic opposition and a smattering of Republican absences at that point in the markup session. The panel also unanimously advanced the Broadband and Telecommunications Rail Act (HR-6046) and five other bipartisan connectivity bills, as expected (see 2512020063).