May 2014

The new Federal Communications Commission rule barring Top 4 TV stations from negotiating retransmission consent deals together in the same market will go into effect June 18 -- the same day petitions seeking agency reconsideration of the new ban are now due.

In addition, legal challenges to the new bar on joint retransmission negotiations will be due in federal appeals court by July 18, they added.

The clock on the legal filing deadlines was set into motion by the official publication of the FCC’s March 31 order in the Federal Register. The Federal Register, according to the agency’s website, is planning to publish the official order on the FCC’s March 31 crackdown on joint sales agreements, setting off another set of legal filing deadlines.

[Commentary] Some bills that ordinarily might generate some controversy fly through the Legislature with nary a vote against them. Consider AB 2365 by Assembly Speaker Emeritus John A. Pérez (D-Los Angeles).

Introduced in February, it has encountered almost no opposition. The bill seeks to provide some new legal protection for consumers who offer online opinions or comments. It would make it illegal for retailers to require customers to agree not to complain publicly, such as in online reviews, about their purchases.

If merchants think that our 1st Amendment free speech rights need to be curtailed, they should say so upfront and in plain language. Such legalese often is found in small type in pop-up windows that prompt online buyers to agree to the terms before completing a purchase. Merchants, before threatening to or taking legal action, would have to prove that a customer knowingly and voluntarily agreed to not post negative comments.

When someone leaked a copy of a New York Times report on innovation (that was shockingly good), it clearly identified the major problems facing the newspaper in an increasingly digital world, and it made some smart recommendations for transforming the Times into a "digital first" publication.

If the Times were to follow them, it would have a large and positive impact on the paper.

Nevertheless, translating the report's recommendations into action will be very difficult. As Ezra points out, the report includes an excellent summary of Clay Christensen's concept of disruption. The report correctly observes that publications like Buzzfeed are posing exactly the kind of disruptive threat Christensen wrote about.

But what the report doesn't mention is the sobering conclusion of Christensen's research: companies faced with disruptive threats almost never manage to handle them gracefully. And the reality is that most businesses threatened by disruptive innovation don't survive. So even if the senior leadership of the Times accepts the findings of the Times innovation report, they're going to find it a huge challenge to make the kind of dramatic changes that will be required for the Times to master the web.

[Commentary] Well, the last meeting of the Federal Communications Commission was certainly a lot of sound and fury signifying next to nothing.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, despite weeks of backlash, still wants to allow Internet Service Providers like Comcast and Verizon to “offer” different levels of service to Internet companies, although he refused to call them a “fast lane” and a “slow lane” and refused to recognize how those arrangements up the food chain affect consumers and a neutral Internet.

His concession to those of us who value a neutral Internet is to allow it on a case-by-case basis, guaranteeing that nothing will ever get settled, and Internet companies will be allowed to bleed money. Sure, the FCC will ask whether the telecommunications services that carry Internet content should be regulated like utilities (Title II of the Communications Act), and there will be people who make an argument for it.

But here’s the rub. The damage is already done. It was done months ago. And the FCC did nothing to stop it. Regardless of what rule the FCC finally approves, and defends through the years of court challenges, it already established the bad precedent that big ISPs can cause traffic congestion, demand tribute to fix it, and get away with it.