Connoisseur Media asked the FCC this week to issue a declaratory ruling allowing a subsidiary to be up to 100% foreign-owned to allow investments from Cayman Island-based investment funds and to allow a U.K. citizen -- Connoisseur CFO Oliver Price -- to hold a noncontrolling interest in the company. Approval of the petition will provide Connoisseur “with greater access to capital, thereby enabling it to better compete in the media marketplace,” the filing said.

The FCC’s news distortion rule “has become a loaded gun that allows the FCC to ‘regulate by raised eyebrow,’” wrote former FCC Chairman Mark Fowler in a letter published Tuesday by the Wall Street Journal. He pointed out that a number of Republicans who served at the FCC joined with Democrats, including former Chairman Tom Wheeler, in a recent petition (see 2511130052) calling on the agency to revoke the policy. “Two-thirds of the signatories are red-blooded Republicans who have always believed the government has no business policing the media for bias or balance,” wrote Fowler, who chaired the commission under former President Ronald Reagan. He said Carr has “brandished” the news distortion policy “to stifle content he deems unfair” to President Donald Trump. “The press that uses air and electrons must be as free of Washington censors as the press that uses paper and ink.”

The Democracy Forward Foundation has asked a federal court to compel the FCC to comply with Freedom of Information Act requests for emails and messages from Chairman Brendan Carr and his staff related to the agency's actions against media companies. “DFF filed FOIA requests to shed light on the actions and priorities of FCC leadership, particularly given the agency’s use of its authority to restrain protected speech and expression,” said the complaint, filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

PBS didn’t air the BBC documentary that was the focus of recent letters from FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, a PBS spokesperson told us Friday. Carr sent letters last week to PBS, NPR and the BBC seeking information about whether a BBC documentary on the Jan. 6 riot aired in the U.S. and warning of possible FCC enforcement action (see 2511200061). President Donald Trump threatened legal action over the documentary, and the BBC apologized for misleading edits in it. “We did not air any of the video in question and have replied to the FCC with that information,” the PBS spokesperson said.

The FCC doesn’t have the authority to do away with the national broadcast-ownership cap or waive it on a case-by-case basis, said Vanderbilt Law School professor Brian Fitzpatrick in a Nov. 3 letter posted Tuesday in docket 17-318. Fitzpatrick’s filing was amplified in a news release from Newsmax, which has opposed eliminating the cap. "Congress forced the Commission to adopt the 39% ownership cap in the 2004 amendments to the Telecommunications Act and further commanded that any entity that grew beyond that number must divest in a timely manner,” wrote Fitzpatrick. “The Commission cannot ‘waive’ these statutory commands. Nor can it circumvent them by manipulating the UHF discount or permitting sidecar deals.”

Nexstar and Tegna have filed transfer of control applications with the FCC to begin the regulatory review of their proposed $6.2 billion deal, Nexstar said in a news release Tuesday. The deal would put Nexstar over the national TV ownership cap, and the applications include requests for waivers of the cap and other FCC ownership rules, the release said. “The applications address why, if certain of the FCC's rules governing television ownership remain in effect, waiver of the rules would serve the public interest, especially in the local communities Nexstar's stations will serve.” The FCC's authority to waive the cap was disputed in a recent ex parte filing (see 2511180049)

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr echoed President Donald Trump’s call Saturday for NBC late-night host Seth Meyers to be fired and posted a picture with Trump the next day. On Truth Social on Saturday, Trump said Meyers is suffering from an “incurable case of Trump Derangement Syndrome" and called his show a ratings disaster. “Aside from everything else, Meyers has no talent, and NBC should fire him, IMMEDIATELY!” Trump wrote.

Free State Foundation CEO Randolph May did inform Tech Freedom of his concerns that a petition last week was one-sided in its call for the deletion of the FCC’s news distortion policy, said May and some of the document’s signatories late Friday (see 2511140037). Former FCC aide Gigi Sohn, who represents the petitioners, said earlier last week that May hadn’t expressed his concerns to her but told us in an email Friday that “apparently Randy did convey to one of my colleagues his concern that the petition was one-sided.” She also pushed back on May’s concerns. “I know of no examples of Democratic FCC Chairs abusing the news distortion policy,” she said. “Whether Democratic FCC Chairs abused other rules isn’t relevant to the petition.”

The FCC Enforcement Bureau has reached a $7,200 settlement with a Massachusetts pirate broadcaster, said an order and consent decree in Friday’s Daily Digest. The order was adopted Sept. 30, but its release was likely delayed by the federal shutdown. The FCC approved a $40,000 notice of apparent liability against Robert Bellinger of Cotuit, Massachusetts, in April 2024. According to Friday’s order, Bellinger asked the FCC to cancel the proposed forfeiture due to his inability to pay it, and the agency verified his financial information and confirmed that his unauthorized broadcasts have ceased. Under the terms of the settlement, he will have to pay the remaining $32,800 if he is found to be engaging in unauthorized broadcasts again in the next 20 years.

Free State Foundation President Randolph May said in a post on X Friday that he was asked to sign a recent petition against the FCC’s news distortion policy (see 2511130052) but declined because the document was too one-sided. “While I declined to sign the petition, I do favor elimination of the news distortion rule,” said May, a former assistant general counsel and associate general counsel at the FCC between 1978 and 1981. “It will be difficult to move forward until the signers acknowledge abuses occurred under previous Democrat FCCs.” The petition was signed by several former Republican FCC chairmen and commissioners. Former FCC aide Gigi Sohn, who represents the petitioners, said May didn't tell them he believed the petition was too one-sided when he declined to sign. May didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.