An FCC draft order that would create questions for licensees seeking permission to be owned by foreign nationals is expected to change little from its draft version and to be approved unanimously at the agency’s Sept. 30 meeting, said industry experts in recent interviews. “The industry is getting a narrow set of questions,” said Vinson & Elkins' Richard Sofield. “Are they as narrow as they’d like? No, but there is certainty.” DOD, DOJ and the Department of Homeland Security make up Team Telecom, which Sofield used to chair.
The 2021 NAB Show is shifting to a virtual event, and won't convene in-person at the Las Vegas Convention Center Oct. 9-13, the association announced Wednesday. The 2022 NAB Show, set for April 23-27, is still planned to be in-person, NAB said. Several other conventions are still set to proceed, including CES 2022 in early January..
The 2021 NAB Show is shifting to a virtual event, and won't convene in-person at the Las Vegas Convention Center Oct. 9-13, the association announced Wednesday. The 2022 NAB Show, set for April 23-27, is still planned to be in-person, NAB said. See our earlier news bulletin here.
The 2021 NAB Show won’t be in-person, NAB said Wednesday. The event had been set for Oct. 9-13 at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
The 2021 NAB Show won’t be in-person, NAB said Wednesday. The event had been set for Oct. 9-13 at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
The FCC could accede to a request to pause new foreign-sponsored content identification rules, and it's likely broadcasters otherwise will renew the request in court, said broadcast and appellate attorneys in interviews. A stay petition was filed last week by NAB, the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters and the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council. They argue the new rules will affect all stations when relatively few air the content targeted by the regulations. The FCC “could easily have achieved its purported objectives and then some with a less burdensome approach,” said the stay request.
Microsoft’s petition for reconsideration of relaxed interference rules for distributed transmission systems is “illogical and contrary to the public interest,” said NAB and America’s Public Television Stations in a call with FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington Thursday, per a filing posted Monday in docket 20-74. “There is no track record of [TV White Space] TVWS success, or even the potential for success, that would warrant limiting broadcasters’ efforts to improve service to viewers,” the associations said. “Despite Microsoft’s repeated efforts to amplify the purported successes of TVWS deployments ... just 322 TVWS devices [are] authorized in the United States today.” Microsoft didn’t comment. In a separate filing, APTS and NAB targeted replies from Public Knowledge, Tribal Digital Village and the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute. New DTS rules don’t give broadcasters new spectrum rights or new protections, the broadcasters said: “Despite the length of the Interest Groups’ comments, they are rife with factual errors and misleading conflations and reflect no effort to engage seriously with the substance of this proceeding.” The groups didn’t comment.
The FCC Media Bureau’s latest report on broadcast ownership, based on data from 2019, shows little change in minority and female ownership from the previous version, which was based on 2017 data but released in 2020 (see 2002140048). "It is essential that we identify ways we can encourage more diversity in this market, including reinstatement of the Minority Tax Certificate Program," said Acting FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel in a release Friday. "Today's results from the FCC media ownership report scream that we need to reinstate the diversity tax certificate program." emailed Nicol Turner-Lee, of the Brookings Institution. Eight former FCC chairs echoed her.
Two years after comments on the 2018 media ownership quadrennial review, positions haven't changed, agreed station groups, MVPD associations, and diversity and trade organizations. They refreshed the record in FCC docket 18-349 by largely restating previous arguments.
Three Louisiana public safety answering points are down and six more are rerouting calls, said Tuesday’s disaster information reporting system on communications systems affected by Tropical Storm Ida. The FCC also extended deadlines, among other actions. New Orleans and nearby Louisiana parishes have faced 911 outages, and landlines have been out of service in some areas (see 2108300054).