The FCC Media Bureau solicited comments on a letter from the Coalition for Broadcast Investment (CBI) that asked the commission to loosen its foreign ownership restrictions on broadcast licensees. The CBI includes companies such as Disney, Clear Channel, CBS, Hearst, Univision and groups such as the National Association of Black County Officials, National Black Chamber of Congress, and Minority Media and Telecommunications Council. The coalition asked in August that the FCC clarify that it will conduct case-by-case evaluations of proposals for foreign investment in broadcast holding companies that exceed a 25 percent stake.
Delays in the deployment of federal broadband funds and infrastructure are partly caused by cumbersome environmental and historic preservation requirements, federal witnesses will say at Wednesday’s House Communications Subcommittee hearing. But poor oversight of funds and grants from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act have resulted in duplicative overbuilding of broadband infrastructure in some areas, regional telecom executives in Colorado and New England plan to counter. (See separate report in this issue.) That’s according to written testimony posted on the subcommittee’s website Tuesday.
Data caps harm consumers, content creators and online innovation, panelists said Tuesday at the 2013 Public Knowledge Policy Symposium. On a later panel, representatives from Time Warner Cable and Dish Network spoke about the need to use the 2014 deadline to reauthorize the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act (STELA) to examine the success of the current broadcast regulatory regime.
Colorado’s EAGLE-Net Alliance, partially suspended in December and still accused of overbuilding, remains a source of conflict headed into a congressional hearing Wednesday. The House Subcommittee on Communications hearing will address EAGLE-Net in 2322 Rayburn at 10 a.m., due to the push of one congressional Republican. Others rushed to defend the entity and question the nature of the claims, which EAGLE-Net, intended to serve schools and other institutions throughout the state, denies. NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling met with EAGLE-Net officials and stakeholders when in Colorado recently, multiple sources told us, as the entity fights to escape suspension.
State regulators were critical of AT&T’s proposal to implement wire center trials where certain legacy regulations would be lifted. Their opinions came in early reply comments posted Monday in WC docket 12-353. Sprint Nextel also opposed the proposal, arguing the pro-competitive provisions in the 1996 Telecom Act are technology-neutral. Intel said it supported the proposal as a way to test the effect of deregulation.
The Center for Copyright Information (CCI) has begun implementation of the Copyright Alert System (CAS), the group said Monday. CAS is a collaborative effort among ISPs -- AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Verizon -- and copyright holders, including the Recording Industry Association of America and Motion Picture Association of America. It will serve educational notices and mitigation measures to ISPs’ subscribers who access copyright-infringing material through peer-to-peer networks. The system was initially scheduled to launch last year, but implementation was delayed due to testing difficulties.
MetroPCS was forced to contemplate a merger with T-Mobile after MetroPCS found itself unable to buy enough spectrum either in FCC auctions or on the secondary market, MetroPCS said in a filing at the SEC Monday, made in preparation for a shareholder vote on the deal. MetroPCS, which is to report Q4 earnings Tuesday, said the shareholder vote will take place March 28 in Richardson, Texas. Under the deal unveiled in October (CD Oct 4 p1) Deutsche Telekom will buy the smaller carrier to merge it with T-Mobile USA, its U.S. subsidiary.
Increased competition among traditional multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) and over-the-top providers is forcing those companies to pay more for content rights, said James Murdoch, deputy chief operating officer of News Corp. That means more value is accruing to the businesses who are “upstream” of pay-TV distributors, namely cable networks and TV studios, Murdoch told an investor conference in San Francisco Monday. “It’s a very competitive downstream environment and it’s forcing those distributors … to really think about what is the content that’s going to move the dial,” he said. “I think you're seeing value move up stream a bit and I think that’s going to continue."
Three judges asked skeptical questions about the FCC making Comcast carry the Tennis Channel as widely as the two other sports networks which the operator owns. At oral argument Monday at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, different jurists focused on different issues in the 2012 program carriage order that split the commission 3-2 on party lines (CD July 26 p5). Judges Harry Edwards, Brett Kavanaugh and Stephen Williams spent about twice their allotted 15 minutes for the FCC side asking the agency’s lawyer, Peter Karanjia, about the jurists’ various concerns with the order.
Partners in the mobile emergency alert system effort are nearing the end of the technology standardization process and moving toward commercialization of the equipment and implementation of the system, said Harris Broadcast, Mobile500 Alliance and other partners. Commercial and noncommercial broadcasters have demonstrated the technology and are planning to take it up, they said. The effort began as a pilot project headed by PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting aimed at distributing emergency alerts to the public using video, text messages and other media (CD June 6 p11). Mobile EAS uses the mobile DTV equipment infrastructure.