By Richard R. Zaragoza Talk about being in a tough spot. Members of Congress are urging the FCC to broker an agreement between Cablevision and Fox in their ongoing retransmission consent dispute. Cablevision’s subscribers in the impacted areas are worried that the contractual dispute will not end any time soon…
In the heat of the battle raging over carriage of various Fox networks on Cablevision’s systems, Randy May, the founder and chief intellect of the Free State Foundation, has weighed in on the retransmission consent debate (available here). I read his comments with interest, because Randy often provides insightful observations…
The FCC’s Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking comment on the conversion of low power television stations from analog to digital operation was published in the Federal Register today. Comments on the FCC’s proposals are due on December 17, 2010, with reply comments due on January 18, 2011. Although Congress…
In October of 1996 my boss, the chairman of a $3 billion television production and distribution empire (and one of the smartest television dealmakers I ever met) scoffed when I said that television could be delivered over the Internet. I told him to wait ten years. Well, in 2006 we…
Last week, Congress passed the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010 (the “Act”) which, among other things, reinstates the FCC’s former Video Description rules for television broadcasters, extends closed captioning of video programming to the Internet, and requires the FCC to examine methods of increasing the accessibility…
After we published our Advisory reminding licensees of the deadline to electronically file the Quarterly Children’s Television Programming Report on FCC Form 398 for the Third Quarter of 2010, the FCC disclosed that it has modified its electronic filing system to require the entry of a Federal Registration Number (“FRN”)…
The Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) announced in a public notice released today that it has adopted the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) v1.2 Standard for FEMA’s Integrated Public Alert Warning System (IPAWS). Under the FCC’s Rules, Emergency Alert System (EAS) participants (e.g., radio and television stations,…
The FCC today released an order refining, but largely reaffirming, its earlier decision to allow unlicensed devices to operate in the TV band as long as they do not cause interference to existing users such as TV stations and wireless microphone operators. While many refer to this spectrum as “white…
The staggered deadlines for filing Biennial Ownership Reports by noncommercial educational radio and television stations remain in effect and are tied to their respective anniversary renewal filing deadlines. Noncommercial educational radio stations licensed to communities in Iowa and Missouri, and noncommercial educational television stations licensed to communities in Alaska, American…
One of the great things about being a communications lawyer is the wide array of issues you deal with over the course of a day. Contract lawyers negotiate contracts, and litigators litigate, but communications lawyers negotiate contracts, litigate, argue government policy, and generally are thrown into the breach whenever a…