Social Media

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr is pressuring YouTube parent Google in a looming carriage dispute with Fox Corp. "Get a deal done Google!" Carr wrote Tuesday on social media. "Google removing Fox channels from YouTube TV would be a terrible outcome. Millions of Americans are relying on YouTube to resolve this dispute so they can keep watching the news and sports they want -- including this week’s Big Game: Texas @ Ohio State."

U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan for the District of Columbia has rejected an FTC request for a stay of an enjoinment in the agency's probe of alleged media outlet collusion. In an opinion Friday (docket 1:25-cv-01959), Sooknanan said the FTC "fall[s] well short of satisfying the high burden needed for a stay pending appeal." With plaintiff Media Matters likely to succeed on the merits of its First Amendment claim, it's unlikely that an FTC appeal will succeed on the merits, the judge said. The agency hasn't identified an irreparable injury that warrants a stay, she added. Media Matters, a left-leaning media watchdog group, sued the FTC in June to block a civil investigative demand that the agency filed in its investigation into alleged collusion between media outlets and social media platforms (see 2506230039).

President Donald Trump said on social media Sunday that ABC and NBC should “lose their licenses” or else pay “Millions of Dollars a year in LICENSE FEES.” Broadcast networks aren't licensed by the FCC. Trump said in one post that ABC and NBC are biased and give him “97% BAD STORIES.” The networks “ARE SIMPLY AN ARM OF THE DEMOCRAT PARTY AND SHOULD, ACCORDING TO MANY, HAVE THEIR LICENSES REVOKED BY THE FCC,” Trump wrote. “I would be totally in favor of that because they are so biased and untruthful, an actual threat to our Democracy!!!” ABC and NBC should “lose their Licenses for their unfair coverage of Republicans and/or Conservatives, but at a minimum, they should pay up BIG for having the privilege of using the most valuable airwaves anywhere at anytime!!!” he added in another post. “Crooked ‘journalism’ should not be rewarded, it should be terminated!!!”

States face a challenge getting their BEAD final proposals to NTIA by the Sept. 4, but most will meet the deadline, Colorado Broadband Office Executive Director Brandy Reitter said Tuesday at the Technology Policy Institute's Aspen Forum. Large states like Texas and California will probably need extensions, she told us. Reitter said she was fairly confident NTIA in turn would meet its deadline for reviewing the final proposals within 90 days of receiving them.

The FTC's probe of Media Matters is "a straightforward First Amendment violation," a federal judge ruled Friday, granting the left-leaning journalism watchdog group a preliminary injunction against the agency's civil investigative demand (CID). "It should alarm all Americans when the Government retaliates against individuals or organizations for engaging in constitutionally protected public debate," U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Sparkle Sooknanan said in an opinion (docket 1:25-cv-01959). Media Matters filed suit in June, seeking to block the CID (see 2506230039). The judge said Media Matters was "engaged in quintessential First Amendment activity" with its reporting on Elon Musk and his X social media platform, and the subsequent FTC CID was a retaliatory act.

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.

The FCC should investigate broadcast network late-night shows “to ascertain whether late-night shows on broadcast channels are violating broadcasters’ public interest obligations by advancing private agendas,” said the Center for American Rights in a complaint letter Wednesday. A previous complaint from CAR led to the FCC’s news distortion proceeding against CBS. Wednesday’s letter references CBS’ announcement that it was canceling The Late Show with host Stephen Colbert because it was losing money, and argues that this is evidence of a political agenda among broadcast networks. Colbert and ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel are both public supporters of former President Joe Biden, the letter said. Late night shows lean left, and “up until today, it could be justified as a profitable (mis)use of the airwaves, indicating some critical mass of consumers wanted it,” CAR said. “Now that myth is busted as well.” The CAR letter cited a 1975 proceeding against a station over slanted news broadcasts, the same precedent CAR cited in a previous complaint calling for the agency to take action against ABC over a reporter’s social media post (see 2506110053). Attorneys have told us that that proceeding doesn’t provide much of a precedent for punishing stations for slanted news, because the station owner in that case, Indiana broadcaster Star Stations, was accused of a host of other violations including witness intimidation, false financial reporting and lying to the commission. The FCC voted then not to renew Star’s licenses because of the licensee's broad misconduct, not its news reports. The FCC has “an appropriate role to ask how things got so bad at CBS -- and whether things are equally bad at ABC and NBC,” CAR said. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s Robert Corn-Revere, a former FCC chief of staff, said CAR’s complaint Wednesday “doesn’t rise to the level of frivolous” and amounts to a “fairness doctrine for late night talk shows.” However, “that doesn't mean this FCC under Chairman [Brendan] Carr won't entertain the idea,” Corn-Revere said.

President Donald Trump said in a post Tuesday that his settlement with Paramount over a 60 Minutes interview has been paid and includes $20 million in ads, public service announcements and programming, on top of the $16 million donation to his presidential library that Paramount previously announced (see 2507020053). The company had denied that the settlement included PSAs or any payout beyond the $16 million, and it appeared to reaffirm that denial Tuesday.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., several Senate Democrats and the Writers Guild of America are questioning whether CBS’ Thursday announcement that it’s canceling The Late Show, hosted by Stephen Colbert, stemmed from Trump administration pressure related to the federal review of Skydance’s $8 billion purchase of network owner Paramount Global. That company recently reached a $16 million settlement in President Donald Trump's lawsuit over CBS’ editing of a 60 Minutes interview last October with former Vice President Kamala Harris. Some attorneys see that settlement as aimed at easing the path to FCC approval of Skydance's deal, but Paramount has denied those claims (see 2507020053).

DOJ's statement of interest in the Children's Health Defense lawsuit against news outlets (see 2507110039) clearly supports the plaintiffs even while claiming neutrality, two International Center for Law & Economics scholars wrote Wednesday. The complaint alleges collusion by major news outlets and social media platforms, and "if there is a route for a successful antitrust case involving content moderation and sources of the news, this might well be it," Ben Sperry and Daniel Gilman wrote. However, the statement of interest "avoids or even obscures" major issues, such as how the plaintiffs could establish antitrust standing to bring the complaint and how antitrust remedies might be subject to First Amendment limitations, they said. DOJ didn't mention that the U.S. Supreme Court's 1945 Associated Press decision indicates antitrust remedies can't compel social media platforms to publish material they don't want to publish, Sperry and Gilman said.