President Donald Trump said in a Truth Social post Wednesday that his lawsuit against CBS, 60 Minutes and Paramount over the editing of an interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris is a “true WINNER” and threatened the New York Times for reporting that the case is baseless. “They just have a non curable case of TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, possibly to the point where the Times’ interjection makes them liable for tortious interference, including in Elections, which we are intently studying,” Trump wrote. “60 Minutes perpetrated a Giant FRAUD against the American People, the Federal Elections Commission, and the Federal Communications System.”

FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez hopes broadcasters “will show courage” in the face of FCC threats against free speech and a free press, she said Monday in an interview on CNN. “The danger of any kind of capitulation by any entity that capitulates to demands to censor or chill speech is it breeds further capitulation,” she said. “It is my hope, in fact, that we will see more courage, and we will see more pushback against this administration.” She also said there's no evidence that CBS violated FCC news distortion rules.

The FCC Enforcement Bureau’s Region One office in Maryland sent a warning to a business in Hartford, Connecticut, about pirate radio broadcasts from its property, said an agency notice of illegal pirate radio broadcasting issued Friday. EB agents in Boston found unauthorized radio broadcasts coming from the property owned by 30 Arbor Street LLC on three different days last year, the notice said. The property appears to include house apartments and a distillery called the Hartford Flavor Co., according to an online search.

NAB wants the FCC to overhaul its website, stop tying rules to specific databases and do away with local public notice rules for stations, the trade group said in comments filed Wednesday in docket 24-626. The filing was a response to a December NPRM that sought comments on cleaning up outdated references and processes in broadcast regulations (see 2412100057).

The FCC should end its freeze on major changes for low-power TV stations and loosen restrictions on power levels, said the Advanced Television Broadcasting Alliance in a filing Wednesday documenting an ex parte meeting Monday with Erin Boone, acting Media Bureau chief and senior counsel to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr. “The time is ripe to allow LPTV stations to improve the service they provide to local communities,” the filing said. The agency shouldn’t impose additional recordkeeping requirements on LPTV stations proposed in an NPRM last year, the alliance said (see 2406060028). “The ATBA encouraged the FCC to formally terminate this proceeding.” It also expressed support for the NAB’s ATSC 3.0 transition plan and urged the FCC to look into providing displacement protection for LPTV stations that provide “local services.”

Workers at the Nexstar-owned newspaper The Hill condemned the broadcaster over a Semafor report that Nexstar fired a reporter to appease the Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG). “The Hill sacrificed one of our members to satisfy" President Donald Trump, said a Monday release from The Hill Guild, a workers organization made up of newsroom staff from the paper. “To say we are disappointed is an understatement.”

The FCC’s foreign-sponsored content rules don’t meet the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act and run “headlong into some of the most critical priorities of the Trump Administration,” said NAB in comments filed Monday with the OMB and FCC. The rules and the related information collection “are at odds with recent administration directives to eliminate, modify and stop adopting/approving unlawful, burdensome regulations,” NAB said. The 2024 order for foreign-sponsored content requires standardized certifications from broadcasters and entities leasing programming time on whether a lessee is a foreign governmental entity. “The diligence requirements associated with the foreign sponsorship identification rules and related information collections are precisely the sorts of requirements that the current Administration expects federal agencies to repeal.” OMB should disapprove the rules, or “at least require the Commission to gather more data and develop more accurate estimates in connection with the proposed information collections,” NAB said. The group has also challenged the rule in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, where oral argument in the case took place earlier this month (see 2504070019).

Gray Media wants the full 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to rehear its legal challenge against a $518,283 forfeiture, the company said Monday in a petition for rehearing en banc, citing recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions and the 5th Circuit’s recent ruling against the FCC over a penalty assessed against AT&T (see 2504180021). Last month, the 11th Circuit upheld the FCC’s forfeiture order against Gray over a violation of ownership rules (see 2503070004) but vacated the penalty because the agency didn’t adequately provide notice that the violation was “egregious.”

Bill Owens, the longtime executive producer of CBS’ 60 Minutes, is resigning over what he said is a loss of journalistic independence, according to a New York Times report Tuesday. CBS faces a $10 billion lawsuit from President Donald Trump and an FCC news distortion proceeding (see 2504140044 and 2502050063), both connected to a 60 Minutes interview last fall of former Vice President Kamala Harris. CBS’ parent company, Paramount Global, also needs FCC approval to finalize its $8 billion purchase by Skydance (see 2503210049). In a memo to staff, Owens said it had become clear that he would no longer be allowed to run the show independently as he had been, the NYT story said. Owens had previously said he wouldn’t apologize to Trump as part of any settlement of his suit. Facing a similar suit from Trump, ABC issued a public statement of regret and made a $15 million contribution to the foundation responsible for constructing Trump’s presidential library (see 2412160043). CBS didn’t comment.

The FCC Enforcement Bureau issued a notice of violation Thursday against Bestov Broadcasting for its station WIAC (AM) San Juan, Puerto Rico, for operating at reduced power and with an unauthorized setup. The station is authorized to operate with a directional antenna pattern using a two-tower array, but in June, EB field agents found the station operating with a single tower with a nondirectional pattern and reduced power. Bestov has 20 days to respond to the bureau, said the notice, which appeared in the Daily Digest.