Terrier Media is restructuring its deal to buy most radio and TV stations from Cox Media and Northwestern's TV outlets to be in compliance with the 3rd U.S. Court of Appeals Prometheus ruling, said Terrier President David Sambur in an amendment (see 1910250006). “Applicants have agreed to make certain targeted changes to the Northwest Transaction and the Cox Transactions to address any concerns regarding compliance with the Commission’s current and possible future media ownership rules,” the amendment said. It posted this week in the FCC consolidated database system.
Notable CROSS rulings
The FCC released an order Wednesday deleting two tariff rules, approved last week 5-0 with little discussion (see 1910250036). The draft and final order were virtually the same, based on a side-by-side comparison. Only Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioner Mike O’Rielly submitted statements. “In short, when it comes to eliminating outdated rules, this Commission has gotten the memo,” Pai said. The rule allows a carrier to cross-reference its own tariffs with those of affiliates and removed a requirement providers file a “short form tariff review plan,” 90 days before the effective date of their annual access charge tariffs.
California county officials said telecom carriers should improve backup systems, after public safety power shutoffs (PSPS) caused outages: Wireless carriers should install backup generators that last days rather than rely on batteries lasting hours. Some had wireline outages although their homes had power. The California Public Utilities Commission has concerns.
Democratic FCC members joined the majority Friday, begrudgingly approving Charter Communications’ effective competition petition based on the existence of vMVPD AT&T TV Now (formerly DirecTV Now). Both they and the Republican majority said the Cable Act clearly justifies grant of Charter’s petition. Democrats concurred in their votes, citing the near-certitude customers in parts of Massachusetts and Hawaii will face big jumps in the cost of basic cable.
The FCC is expected to start its planned appeal of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling on Prometheus IV with an en banc appeal at the 3rd Circuit. That could make the agency unlikely to grant further waivers of ownership rules connected with the case, said academics, broadcasters and appellate attorneys in interviews. That could affect the approval of pending deals at the FCC, broadcast attorneys said.
House Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, D-N.J., and Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mike Doyle, D-Pa., pressed the FCC to explain why it approved in September a Gray Television transaction that includes creating a new top-four combination in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. They said it “undermines” the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' Prometheus IV (see 1909250064). The 2-1 3rd Circuit ruling vacated and remanded the commission's entire media ownership reconsideration order, reinstating attribution rules for joint sales agreements, the ban on newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership, and the eight-voices test. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai vowed to appeal (see 1909230067). “In allowing this transaction to go forward, the FCC undermines the rule of law and the decision of the Third Circuit,” Pallone and Doyle wrote Pai Tuesday. “The FCC’s technical arguments about why it doesn’t have to comply with the Court’s decision seem highly suspect, at best, and an intentional flouting of the rule of law at worst.” Doyle later tweeted he finds the FCC's actions "troubling." The lawmakers want Pai to respond by Nov. 12, including on whether the FCC sought opinions of its Office of General Counsel or the 3rd Circuit on the legality of relying on remanded rules. The lawmakers want to know whether the agency is reviewing other media transactions despite the 3rd Circuit ruling. The commission didn't comment. Last week, parties to an affiliate of Apollo Global Management buying Cox and Northwest stations contended that the ruling doesn't affect that deal (see 1910180027).
A declaratory ruling prohibiting charging higher 911 fees for VoIP subscribers than for legacy phone services circulated on the 8th floor Wednesday. It would resolve jurisdiction issues over such fees, says the FCC draft Friday on docket 19-44. Also released for the Oct. 25 meeting were a draft cable TV effective competition order for parts of Massachusetts and Hawaii, the 800 MHz rebanding draft order, a draft NPRM for removing broadcast antenna siting rules that don’t appear to have ever been successfully used, a draft order on measuring broadband performance of Connect America Fund recipients and a draft order regarding telecom tariffs (see 1910030061).
Locality pre-emption beefs with the FCC aren't ending soon, with limits on local regulators' 911 VoIP fees and an end to some cable TV rate regulation on October's agenda. Chairman Ajit Pai, previewing the items for the Oct. 25 meeting in his blog Thursday, also said there will be items wrapping up part of the lengthy 800 MHz rebanding process, as expected (see 1910020030). There's also a media modernization NPRM that appears to concern eliminating broadcast antenna site rules that industry lawyers say have been used barely a handful of times in the past 30 years. Pai said there will be an order on testing procedures and performance measures for carriers receiving support from the USF Connect America Fund program for broadband deployment to high-cost areas and an order addressing two tariff regulations.
Commissioners are expected at their Oct. 25 meeting to take up an order that would wrap up part of the lengthy 800 MHz rebanding process, which requires Sprint to pay transition costs, FCC and industry officials said Wednesday. Chairman Ajit Pai is expected to release a blog Thursday on the meeting agenda.
The U.S. and Japan reached two agreements to “rebalance trade,” said the White House Wednesday. One of the deals “includes robust commitments on digital trade, which will greatly expand commerce across our modern industries,” it said. A second calls for Japan to open its markets to about $7 billion in U.S. agricultural exports, it said. Talks will continue “in the months ahead” toward a “final, comprehensive trade deal,” it said. Tech groups welcomed the digital trade accord. Along with the digital and e-commerce rules in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on free trade, "this agreement with Japan now makes the two strongest trade agreements in U.S. history for digital trade and cross-border data flows," said CTA. "At a time when every company is essentially a tech company, it’s critical to have a new standard for global rules that ensures American innovation can thrive across borders.” Japan is America’s fourth-largest digital trading partner, “and this agreement enshrines key rules of the road from our shared digital framework,” said the Internet Association: “Digital trade benefits businesses of all sizes in every sector, and this agreement will only grow the $38 billion in digital trade between our two countries.” The “first-stage” U.S.-Japan agreement on digital trade is “a positive step toward solidifying international norms that ensure that global markets remain fair, open, and competitive in the modern economy,” said the Information Technology Industry Council. A future comprehensive U.S.-Japan trade agreement "would help to partially fill the void left by the U.S. withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership," said the Computer & Communications Industry Association.