FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr on Wednesday said the agency must address “concerns” about Skydance’s proposed purchase of Paramount’s CBS licenses. In a post on X, Carr, the agency's incoming chair, shared a petition challenging the deal from the Center for American Rights, which has also filed a petition at the FCC calling for action against CBS over a 60 Minutes interview with Vice President Kamala Harris. “This filing from CAR raises what it describes as significant concerns, including ones that go to CBS's adherence to the public interest standard,” Carr said. This isn’t the first time Carr has suggested that the Paramount deal could face scrutiny from his FCC. “I'm pretty confident that news distortion complaint over the CBS 60 Minutes transcript is something that's likely to rise in the context of the FCC review of that transaction,” Carr said in a November Fox News interview (see 2411190051). This also isn’t the first time Carr has boosted a filing from CAR: In November he posted the group’s complaint accusing NBC of violating the agency’s equal opportunity rules. Along with the petitions against CBS and NBC, CAR also filed an FCC complaint against ABC over its moderation of a 2024 presidential debate.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should apply to the FCC’s collection of workforce demographic data from broadcasters the same reasoning it used in a recent ruling against the SEC, said the National Religious Broadcasters and other petitioners in a Tuesday filing in docket 24-60219. On Dec. 11, the 5th Circuit ruled en banc in Alliance for Fair Board Recruitment v. SEC that the agency lacked the authority to require companies to publicly disclose information about the race, gender and sexual orientation of their boards of directors. In that ruling, the court said the SEC was “stepping outside of its normal regulatory domain” with the requirement. “If Congress had granted a diversity mandate to any agency (an altogether unclear assumption), we would have expected Congress to give it to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or even the Department of Justice,” said the 5th Circuit in the en banc opinion. The FCC’s order requiring broadcasters to submit employee demographic data is a similar overreach, said NRB and fellow petitioners the Texas Association of Broadcasters and the American Family Association.
While georouting texts to the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline can be useful, the Trevor Project said it's "vital" that georouting avoids taking precedence over LGBTQ+ youth specialized services and doesn't interfere with access to those services. In docket 18-336 comments posted Wednesday, it said that it's essential that LGBTQ+ youth who contact 988 are transferred to a provider of counselor services that is competent in LGBTQ+ issues. The FCC should ensure text georouting mandates don't complicate that transfer, it added. The 988 call georouting order approved unanimously at the FCC's October meeting included an NPRM about text georouting (see 2410170026).
The 2,411 voice service providers warned in a recent FCC Enforcement Bureau order to correct their filings in the Robocall Mitigation Database (see 2412100061) have until Dec. 31 to show cause why they shouldn’t be removed from the database, the bureau said in a public notice released Tuesday. “Each Company must cure the deficiencies in its RMD certification and notify the Bureau that the deficiencies have been cured or file a response explaining why the Bureau should not remove the Company’s certification from the RMD,” said the PN. “Removal from the RMD would require all intermediate providers and voice service providers to stop accepting all traffic directly from the Company.”
Mercury Broadband, which has notified the FCC it can't meet rural digital opportunity fund commitments in census tracts in multiple states (see 2411270049, 2411180044 and 2411060028), is relinquishing more than 50 census block groups in Ohio, it said in a default letter posted Wednesday in docket 19-126. As with past default notifications, Mercury said rising deployment costs have made the cost of extending its network to the RDOF census block groups economically unviable.
Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., confirmed to us Wednesday she has changed her mind and now wants Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, to pick her as Communications Subcommittee chair when he takes over the panel in January. Fischer previously said she wasn’t interested in taking over as lead Communications Republican from current ranking member John Thune, R-S.D. (see 2402290057), who will become Senate majority leader in January. Fischer didn’t explain why she now wants to lead the subcommittee but indicated “we’re working it out” now with Cruz. “Obviously, I’m the senior” Republican on Senate Commerce after Cruz, Thune and Armed Services Committee ranking member Roger Wicker of Mississippi and therefore would traditionally get the Communications gavel because “I’ve asked to have it,” Fischer said. “That’s how it works.” Fischer is senior to Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., whose presence as a fill-in for Thune during a Senate Communications hearing last week provoked discussion conversation about whether he was in line for the subpanel gavel (see 2412170053). A Fischer elevation to Senate Communications chair could put her in conflict with Cruz on some spectrum legislative issues. Fischer, who's also a senior Armed Services member, opposes using a spectrum package to mandate an FCC sale of any portion of the DOD-controlled 3.1-3.45 GHz band (see 2403210063). Cruz favors a lower 3 GHz sale.
Communications Daily is tracking the lawsuits below involving appeals of FCC actions.
Saying China-affiliated parties have compromised telecom networks, stolen customer call record data and accessed private communications of senior U.S. officials, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Wednesday issued mobile communications best practices guidance that it said mirrors advice it's giving federal agencies and Congress. "There is no single solution," but the guidance's content will enhance security, Jeff Greene, executive assistant director-cybersecurity, DHS' CISA, told press members.
The FCC’s Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council’s working groups are making progress toward providing the agency with reports on AI security concerns, ensuring access to 911 as networks evolve and offering recommendations for 6G security, said the group leads during Wednesday’s CSRIC meeting. The groups are on pace to deliver several reports in 2025 and 2026, with the first -- on AI, machine learning and the specific security concerns they bring to communications networks -- due in March. “We believe this is a complex task,” said working group co-Chair Vijay Gurbani, Vail Systems' chief data scientist.
Backers of the revised AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act (HR-8449) signaled Wednesday they want to move swiftly on the proposal next year after congressional leaders didn't reach a deal to include it in a continuing resolution that extends federal appropriations through March 14. The CR released Tuesday night includes language from the NTIA Reauthorization Act (HR-4510) and several other telecom and tech bills. Meanwhile, the Senate voted 85-15 Wednesday to pass the FY 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (HR-5009) with language that would authorize the AWS-3 reauction to offset $3.08 billion in funding for the FCC’s Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program (see 2412070001).