CPB said Friday it has begun an “orderly wind-down of its operations,” given enactment of the 2025 Rescissions Act to claw back $1.1 billion of its advance funding for FY 2026 and FY 2027 and the Senate Appropriations Committee’s advancement Thursday of its FY26 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Subcommittee spending bill, which didn’t allocate money to the public broadcasting entity (see 2507310062). Meanwhile, the FCC didn’t comment on whether the Enforcement Bureau will continue investigating PBS and NPR stations for possible violations of underwriting rules (see 2501300065) after the commission released a set of April letters from Chairman Brendan Carr to House lawmakers indicating that the probe “remains ongoing.”
Wireless and space interests are seeking tweaks to the satellite and earth station application processing draft order on the agenda for Thursday's FCC meeting (see 2507170048).
Ending the collection of biennial ownership data through Form 323 would eliminate virtually the only source of information about broadcast-ownership diversity, several civil rights and public interest groups told us. The FCC Media Bureau on Tuesday announced an 18-month pause on collecting Form 323 and seemed to indicate that the requirement to submit the data will be permanently deleted (see 2507300070). Halting Form 323 collection would be “yet another structural policy decision to brush civil rights under the rug, to obscure discrimination in the broadcast industry,” said Free Press co-CEO Jessica Gonzalez in an email. “It's a shameful and brazen dereliction of the FCC's duty to serve all Americans.”
ABC and NBC “should look to the Paramount precedent recently set by this Commission,” said Center for American Rights President Daniel Suhr in a letter Thursday praising the FCC’s probe into Comcast NBCUniversal’s relationship with affiliates. “At a time of New York-Hollywood-Silicon Valley dominance over the vast majority of news and entertainment content, what makes local broadcast stations special is precisely their localness,” Suhr said. “The networks should be encouraging that unique market advantage, not undermining it with programming diktats or must-carry contract provisions.” Because Carr warned ABC about its relationship to affiliate stations in December, it would be “doubly disappointing” if Comcast “ignored those concerns after they were on the record regarding another network,” Suhr said. "The Center for American Rights applauds your decision to direct the Media Bureau to open an inquiry into Comcast’s treatment of NBC’s local affiliates."
The FCC Wireline Bureau is seeking comment on a waiver allowing the creation of a study area for UP Fiber as part of the company’s proposed acquisition of 40 wire centers in 42 exchanges and the associated customers from AT&T’s Michigan Bell. Comments are due Sept. 2, replies Sept. 17 in docket 25-181, said a notice Thursday. The companies said in a May application that the assets in the deal include more than 9,000 miles of copper lines and 1,500 miles of business fiber and network infrastructure providing voice and internet service to more than 9,000 residential and business customers.
Groups representing prisoners and their families on Thursday asked the FCC to rescind a Wireline Bureau order delaying some incarcerated people’s communications service (IPCS) deadlines until April 1, 2027. The prisoner advocates told us previously that they were weighing their options following the bureau order (see 2507030024).
Opponents of T-Mobile’s purchase of wireless assets from UScellular, including spectrum, filed a challenge to an FCC bureau order approving the deal (see 2507110045). They asked the agency to review the decision before it closes, which is expected Friday. Commissioner Anna Gomez said in an email she agreed that commissioners should have been asked to vote on the transaction.
The FCC Media Bureau has waived the requirement that broadcasters file biennial ownership reports for 18 months, in apparent anticipation of that requirement being eliminated, said a public notice late Tuesday. Multiple commenters in the agency's "Delete" proceeding “urged the Commission to revisit the current biennial ownership filing requirement, which they maintain is a costly and burdensome requirement without a sufficient offsetting public benefit,” the notice said. “With the next filing window approaching, we find there is good cause to waive the biennial ownership report filing requirement.”
The FCC has logged more than 3,000 comments complaining about a Wireline Bureau decision to delay some deadlines for incarcerated people’s communications service until April 1, 2027 (see 2506300068). “The FCC's sudden reversal" on regulations that passed unanimously last year is "plainly shameful,” said a filing by Caitlin Bambery posted Wednesday in docket 23-62. “It delays more than four decades of necessary relief for those who need it most, families with incarcerated loved ones.”
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has opened an investigation into Comcast NBCUniversal’s relationship with its affiliates, days after President Donald Trump targeted the network in a social media post. Carr told Comcast in a letter Tuesday that the Media Bureau will scrutinize its affiliation agreements for restrictions on streaming negotiations or competing for local sports rights, as well as terms that could “unduly inhibit” local broadcast station programming decisions.