1. Monthly archive
  2. June 2017

June 2017

Sinclair-Tribune Merger Faces Roadblock as Court Puts Hold on FCC Station Ownership Rule

The DC Circuit Court of Appeals put on hold the Federal Communications Commission’s plans to restore a key media ownership rule that allowed major station groups to expand through mergers and acquisitions. The ruling could prove to be a roadblock to Sinclair Broadcast Group’s pending $3.9 billion acquisition of Tribune Media TV stations.

The court issued a stay to the FCC’s decision in April to restore the so-called UHF discount, which has allowed major media companies to exceed restrictions on the number of stations that they can own. The court said that the stay will give them an opportunity to review the merits of the case. Apparently, the temporary stay granted on June 1 extends through June 7, and the real test will come next week after the review is completed by a three-judge panel.

FCC to Court: UHF Stay Request Flunks Tests

Federal Communications Commission lawyers have told a DC federal court that opponents of the April 20 decision to reinstate the UHF discount have not met the high bar for an emergency stay of that decision. The discount means that UHF TV station ownership only counts for half of their audience reach toward the 39% national ownership cap. The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit has granted an administrative stay of the June 5 effective date of the return of the discount but only so it can review the FCC's defense to an emergency stay request sought by opponents of the decision and the response from those opponents, which include Free Press and Prometheus. In opposing the emergency stay, the FCC says the commission simply concluded the agency had erred in a previous order—under then-chairman Tom Wheeler—that repealed the discount without also adjusting the cap. It did grandfather ownership groups for which the change would have pushed them over the 39% limit, though that grandfathering would not extend to sales of those stations.

After bomb threats, FCC proposes letting police unveil anonymous callers

Police should be allowed to unmask anonymous callers who have made serious threats over the phone, the Federal Communications Commission has proposed. The proposal would allow law enforcement, and potentially the person who’s been called, to learn the phone number of an anonymous caller if they receive a “serious and imminent” threat that poses “substantial risk to property, life, safety, or health.” Specifics are still up in the air. The FCC is asking, for instance, whether unveiled caller ID information should only be provided to law enforcement officials investigating a threat, to ensure that this exemption isn’t abused.

The BROWSER Act: A privacy misstep

[Commentary] Like the network neutrality debate, the privacy debate has been hijacked by noise rather than analysis, filling the zeitgeist with several misconceptions about the state of American privacy law. No doubt this misinformation campaign contributed to House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Marsha Blackburn’s (R-TN) decision to introduce this bill. But the act ultimately sacrifices the internet’s primary revenue engine in an attempt to solve a problem that the relevant agencies are well on their way to resolving on their own.

If Congress wanted to make a real contribution, it could repeal the Federal Trade Commission Act’s outdated common carrier exemption, which helped trigger this debate. While well-intentioned, the BROWSER Act accomplishes little good while threatening significant harm to the internet ecosystem.

[Daniel Lyons is an associate professor at Boston College Law School]

© 1994-2026 Benton Institute for Broadband & Society. All Rights Reserved.