The FCC has announced the membership of the rechartered Intergovernmental Advisory Committee in a public notice and news release Monday. Composed of elected officials from municipal, county, state and tribal governments, the IAC is focused on advising the FCC on telecom issues that affect those entities. “These local, county, state, and Tribal leaders offer the Commission valuable perspectives on how we can work together to connect the American people,” said Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel in the release. The IAC has 30 new and returning members, including Chair and Michigan Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist (D) and Vice Chair Marshall Pierite, who is chairman-CEO of the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana. The group also includes the governors of North Carolina, Wisconsin and South Carolina, the mayors of Washington, D.C.; Pasadena, California; and North Miami, Florida, and numerous other public officials. The first IAC meeting will be held on April 18.
Oral argument in Gray Television’s petition for review against the FCC is scheduled for May 15 in Birmingham, said an 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals calendar Friday (docket 22-14274). Argument time is 15 minutes for each side, it said. Gray’s petition argues that the agency’s authority over broadcast license transfers doesn’t apply to the company’s 2020 purchase of another broadcaster’s CBS network affiliate in Anchorage because no licenses were transferred (see 2309140058).
Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Communications Subcommittee ranking member John Thune, R-S.D., filed their long-circulating 2024 Spectrum Pipeline Act Monday with some changes from a draft version proposed in the fall (see 2311220063). The proposal drew sharply divided reactions from communications policy stakeholders. Some lobbyists suggested Cruz and Thune filed the measure Monday to get ahead of NTIA's planned release later this week of its implementation plan for the Biden administration's national spectrum strategy (see 2403050048).
President Joe Biden is requesting increased funding in FY 2025 for the FCC, Patent Office and the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (see 2303130070). The FY25 requests are lower than FY24's for the FTC, NTIA, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, DOJ’s Antitrust Division and some Agriculture Department broadband programs, though in some cases the Biden proposal exceeds ultimate Congressional allocations for FY24. Biden signed off Saturday on the Consolidated Appropriations Act FY24 appropriations minibus package (HR-4366), which included funding cuts for NTIA and other Commerce agencies but a slight increase for DOJ Antitrust (see 2403040083). The Senate voted 75-22 Friday night to approve the package.
An FCC proposal requiring that MVPDs reimburse customers for programming affected by retransmission consent blackouts (see 2401170072) is outside the agency’s authority, unworkable, and would lead to higher prices for subscribers, said MVPDs and MVPD trade groups in comments filed in docket 24-20 by Friday’s deadline. The rebate proposal would be an “unnecessary government intrusion into already difficult negotiations” and “disrupt the marketplace by placing the government’s thumb on the scale to the detriment of cable subscribers,” said NCTA.
Satellogic is eyeing an October launch for the first 16 satellites of a planned earth exploration service that will image the planet using multi-spectral and hyper-spectral optical sensors. In an FCC Space Bureau application posted Friday, Satellogic asked for authorization to operate what ultimately would be a 120-satellite X-band constellation.
Pay-TV industry interests are pushing the FCC for more time to implement "all-in" video pricing disclosure rules. FCC commissioners will vote on the proposed rules at Thursday's open meeting (see 2402210057). MVPD interests are lobbying on implementation timelines, according to docket 23-203 filings Friday. DirecTV said it would need more time and asked for at least a 12-month deadline or maintenance of the current nine-month deadline for all-in disclosures in advertisements but allowing an additional six months for customer bills. It said solely regulating cable and satellite TV hurts their competitiveness with online services. At least give operators a 12-month window for compliance, ACA Connects told aides to Commissioners Geoffrey Starks and Anna Gomez. It said changing customer bills "is a complex undertaking that can involve many sequential steps," especially if the providers use third-party software platforms. Pricing requirements won't address the "underlying dysfunction" in the video marketplace, and urged the FCC against adoption. Pointing to arguments that the rules just apply to cable and direct broadcast satellite, One Ministries said virtual MVPDs should be regulated along with MVPDs. Without it, virtual MVPDs "will continue to discriminate against local 'mom and pop' independent TV stations by not carrying them and only carrying the major network TV stations in the various TV markets," it said.
Both sides in a dispute involving alleged violations of good faith retransmission consent rules between Nexstar and Hawaiian Telecom want the full FCC to overturn aspects of a Media Bureau $720,000 notice of apparent liability issued against Nexstar last month. In the NAL, the bureau agreed with Hawaiian Telecom that Nexstar violated FCC rules by proposing renewal terms that would have barred HT from filing complaints with the FCC, but rejected as being outside the FCC’s authority HT’s initial claims that the broadcaster also violated the rules by refusing to extend an existing retrans agreement. The FCC can’t order a broadcaster to grant retransmission consent, the NAL said. “The Bureau’s decision incorrectly concludes that in the absence of authority to order a broadcaster to grant retransmission consent, the Commission cannot review bad faith conduct that results in a blackout,” HT said in its application for review Thursday. That decision “will serve as dangerous precedent” that “will likely lead to more frequent blackouts because the very existence of a blackout will exempt the broadcaster’s conduct from Commission scrutiny,” HT said. In its own application for review filed Friday, Nexstar argued the bureau shouldn’t have found any good faith violations and said the proposed $720,000 forfeiture is too high and should be canceled or reduced. The provisions against filing complaints with the FCC were part of Nexstar’s proposal to settle HT’s initial good faith dispute concerning Nexstar’s refusal to extend an existing retrans agreement, Nexstar said. That proposal was “eminently reasonable, and any such settlement would have been deficient without a prohibition on further litigation of the matter,” the broadcaster said. The proposed forfeiture “far exceeds the Bureau’s delegated authority” was arrived at in an “illogical way” by treating a contract proposal as a continuing violation from the date it was first proposed until the date the contract was executed, Nexstar said. Such a policy “perversely incents future parties to delay negotiations in the interest of elevating the potential liability to their counter-parties,” Nexstar said. The NAL also increased the forfeiture using “a draconian upward adjustment that is based on no apparent rationale other than that Nexstar is a large and successful broadcaster,” the filing said. “Even if the Bureau could justify a conclusion that a violation occurred,” the proposed forfeiture “far exceeds the gravity of the conduct, not to mention the Bureau’s delegated authority and notions of reasoned decisionmaking,” said Nexstar.
Sixteen Pennsylvania House of Delegates Democrats and Drexel University law professor Tabatha Abu El-Haj are supporting calls for the FCC to approve the license renewal of Fox’s TV station WTXF Philadelphia, according to ex parte filings in docket 23-293 last week (see 2403060088). “If the FCC removes FOX 29’s broadcasting rights, it will deny Pennsylvanians a local outlet that helps increase political engagement,” said Abu El-Haj's letter. “The FCC should not go down this dangerous path and allow FOX 29 to get back to serving the state of Philadelphia without distraction.” The TV station “provides high-quality, unbiased coverage of Philadelphia and Delaware County’s news and reports on important issues affecting some of the most vulnerable groups in our state,” said the legislators' letter.
NAB filed a challenge Friday to the FCC's Dec. 26 quadrennial review order in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, joining a number of similar challenges filed in other circuits (see 2402250001). The cases are all to be consolidated in the 8th Circuit under the order of the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (see 2403050075). The FCC failed to meet its statutory obligation to review ownership rules every four years, exceeded its authority by tightening rules rather than relaxing them, and violated the First Amendment by limiting stations from airing multiple top-four networks on multicast channels, alleged NAB in its petition for review (docket 24-1055). The new rules are content-based restrictions on television stations outside the FCC's authority, said the petition. The FCC also ignored the will of Congress and violated the Administrative Procedure Act by not considering evidence in the record on competition faced by broadcasters. “The record shows that advertisers are increasingly diverting resources away from local radio and television stations in favor of digital promotions,” the petition said. “But the Quadrennial Order disregards these bedrock changes in the media and advertising landscape.” The court should vacate and set aside the order, NAB said.