- President Trump signed an Executive Order purporting to end federal subsidies for NPR and PBS provided through the Corporation for
retransmission consent
This Week in Regulation for Broadcasters: July 8, 2024 to July 12, 2024
- The FCC’s weekly list of items on circulation (those orders or rulemaking proposals that have been drafted and are currently
This Week in Regulation for Broadcasters: March 25, 2024 to March 29, 2024
- In this week’s list of tentative decisions circulating among the Commissioners for review and a vote, an item concerning the
This Week in Regulation for Broadcasters: February 5, 2024 to February 9, 2024
- The FCC removed from its list of tentative written decisions circulating among the Commissioners for review and approval an item
This Week in Regulation for Broadcasters: January 8 to January 12, 2024
- The FCC’s January 12 report listing the items on circulation (those orders or rulemaking proposals that have been drafted and
The Last Three Weeks in Regulation for Broadcasters: December 18, 2023 to January 5, 2024
Expecting quiet weeks, we took the holidays off from providing our weekly summary of regulatory actions of interest to broadcasters. But, during that period, there actually were many regulatory developments. Here are some of those developments, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your…
Broadcast Regulation Does Not Take a Vacation: FCC Resolves 2018 Quadrennial Review with No Significant Changes in Ownership Rules; Proposes a Reporting System for Retransmission Blackouts; and Advances New EEO Reporting Rules
While we normally publish a weekly summary of regulatory actions relevant to broadcasters, the weekend before last we said that we would take the holiday weeks off – and return with a summary on January 7 of all that occurred over the break – unless there was news in the interim. Well, there has been…
This Week in Regulation for Broadcasters: October 9 to October 13, 2023
- FCC Chairwoman Rosenworcel announced that two Notices of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRMs) have been drafted, which, if adopted by
Does the FCC Regulate Internet Content and Companies?
In our summary of last week’s regulatory actions, I was struck by a common thread in comments made by several FCC Commissioners in different contexts – the thread being the FCC’s role in regulating Internet content companies. As we noted in our summary, both Republican commissioners issued statements last week in response to a request by a public interest group that the FCC block Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter. The Commissioners stated that the FCC had no role to play in reviewing that acquisition. Twitter does not appear to own regulated communications assets and thus the FCC would not be called upon to review any application for the acquisition of that company. The Commissioners also noted concerns with the First Amendment implications of trying to block the acquisition because of Musk’s hands-off position on the regulation of content on the platform, but the Commissioners’ principal concern was with FCC jurisdiction (Carr Statement, Simington Comments). In the same week, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, in remarks to a disability rights organization, talked about plans for more FCC forums on the accessibility of Internet content to follow up on the sessions that we wrote about here.
The ability of the FCC to regulate internet content and platforms depends on statutory authority. In holding the forums on captioning of online video content, the FCC could look to the language of the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, which included language that asked the FCC to look at the accessibility of video content used on internet platforms. In other areas, the FCC’s jurisdiction is not as clear, but calls arise regularly for the FCC to act to regulate content that, as we have written in other contexts, looks more and more like broadcast content and competes directly with that content.
Continue Reading Does the FCC Regulate Internet Content and Companies?
This Week in Regulation for Broadcasters: March 12, 2022 to March 18, 2022
Here are some of the regulatory developments of significance to broadcasters from the last week, and a look ahead at an important deadline next week, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.
- New FCC sponsorship identification rules that impose obligations on almost
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