Monty Tayloe

Antitrust Chief Makan Delrahim is more likely to act to change the ASCAP and BMI music licensing degrees than Congress is, and any move DOJ makes in that direction is likely to be an uneasy process and complicated by the presidential election, broadcast and music licensing attorneys said in interviews this and last week. DOJ held a workshop on the possibility last month (see 2007290068). “It remains apparent from the continuing attention that the Antitrust Division is paying to the issue of consent decree reform that the DOJ may act” to modify the decrees, said Weil Gotshal intellectual property attorney Benjamin Marks, who represented the TV Music Licensing Committee. “I don’t think Congress is likely to take up the issue before the election or in the short term."

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit's 2-1 ruling Friday knocking down two FCC conditions on Charter Communications' buying Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks didn’t get to the merits (see 2008140018). It nonetheless could have implications for future consumer challenges of regulations, said cable attorneys and appellant the Competitive Enterprise Institute in interviews. Industry and public interest lawyers disagree how the ruling will affect a parallel FCC proceeding on sunsetting Charter/TWC/BHN conditions (see 2007230015).

The broadcast TV industry expects improvement in Q3, but it's still (see 2008050063) too uncertain to promise specifics, said executives from Gray Television, Univision, E.W. Scripps and Tegna. “The situation is still fluid and visibility is limited,” said Gray Chief Financial Officer Jim Ryan. “The impact of the pandemic remains uncertain,” said Tegna CFO Victoria Harker. "Scripps has suspended issuing new guidance because of the economic uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic," said the company.

The FCC approved eliminating rules restricting same-market, commonly owned radio stations from airing duplicate programming, 3-2 Thursday. It eliminated restrictions for both bands, as expected (see 2008040063). The draft applied only to AM.

Some broadcasters are seeing signs the downturn in advertising caused by the pandemic is slowly improving. Others remain uncertain, based on earnings releases and quarterly investor calls this week. Sinclair stock closed down 10% Wednesday at $19.32. Fox fell 7.3% to $24.73.

The draft order on relaxing radio non-duplication rules will be expanded to apply to FM and AM stations, and draft items on broadcast antenna siting and telephone relay service rules are expected to be approved before Thursday’s commissioners' meeting, FCC and industry officials said in interviews this week. FCC Democrats are seen likely to oppose the expanded radio item, agency officials said.

President Donald Trump withdrew his renomination of FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly to another term, the White House announced Monday (see 2008030072). The Trump administration and O’Rielly’s office didn’t comment. The agency declined to comment.

Libraries are increasingly taking on the role of filling gaps caused by a lack of broadband access, and the pandemic exacerbated the issue, said librarians, educators and digital access nonprofits during the FCC Advisory Committee on Diversity and Digital Empowerment’s virtual workshop Monday. Libraries lending mobile Wi-Fi hot spots to patrons is a “Band-Aid” for the larger issue of web access, said Lisa Shaw, workforce development specialist for the Maine State Library. “When you’re bleeding, you need a bandage, and we’re bleeding very heavily.”

A draft order circulated to eighth-floor offices Thursday would reduce a Dec. 1 increase of the Lifeline program’s minimum service standard for mobile broadband. Currently, the MSS is to go from 3 GB monthly to 11.75 GB monthly on that date. The draft would instead shift it to 4.5 GB per month. It will “permanently clean up the mess” from the 2016 order that instituted the formula leading to the larger increase, Chairman Ajit Pai said. The agency waived a similar increase, from 3 GB to 8.75, in 2019. The metric has to rise to keep up with consumer data use, but increases that are too large prevent providers from keeping Lifeline affordable, Pai said.

Updated pacts proposed by BMI and ASCAP should be treated as proposals to terminate the consent decree regime entirely because they include a sunset clause, said NAB General Counsel Rick Kaplan during a panel Wednesday on day two of DOJ’s workshop on music licensing (see 2007280062). ASCAP and BMI are “cartels” and it's in the public interest to constrain them with consent decrees, he said. There are more performance rights organizations than ever, and ASCAP and BMI face competition from publishers through direct licensing and from powerful tech companies, said advocates for ASCAP and BMI.