GBS and Shainis Respond to NAB in Zonecasting Battle
NAB’s recent filing attacking GeoBroadcast Solutions CEO Chris Devine and broadcast attorney Aaron Shainis “lobs out-of-context personal allegations that have no bearing on the merits of the proposal before the Commission in a blatant attempt to change the subject and…
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derail this rulemaking,” said GBS in a letter filed in docket 20-401 Tuesday (see 2209230070). A dismissed lawsuit against Devine over an allegedly fraudulent broadcasting deal referenced by NAB was “baseless” and “grew out of a sad, intra-family dispute and was voluntarily withdrawn by the plaintiff with prejudice,” GBS said. “The legal irrelevance to an FCC rulemaking of the lawsuit’s unsubstantiated allegations regurgitated in the letter underscores the letter’s purpose -- to create a sideshow.” Shainis and Pelztman attorney Aaron Shainis repeated in an interview Tuesday that all of his clients on whose behalf he submitted endorsements of the GBS proposal had given their permission, either verbally or in writing. Shainis also told us he has an ownership stake in GBS, but said he informed all of his clients of that connection. Though Q Media President Andrew DeVall told us he hadn’t agreed to his company’s endorsement of zonecasting, Shainis said permission was given by another official at the company. “Some of them may not remember, this was years ago,” Shainis said. Many of the endorsements from Shainis’s clients were filed in 2021. The FCC should allow broadcasters the discretion to choose Zonecasting for themselves, GBS said in its filing. “That is a business decision for broadcasters in their market, and is not a regulatory decision that -- bizarrely and contrary to five decades of advocacy -- NAB now thinks the FCC should be making.”