John Eggerton

Sinclair Broadcasting has told Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai that it shares Sen Claire McCaskill's (D-MO) frustration with the lack of "traditional local news" on its KDNL St. Louis (MO), but not with the remedy she suggested. That came in a letter from Sinclair group VP of news Scott Livingston to Chairman Pai Dec 12. In a different letter to Chairman Pai, Sen McCaskill had asked him not to let Sinclair own two of the top four stations in St. Louis if the FCC allows Sinclair to merge with Tribune, which also has a top-four station there.

Commissioner Mignon Clyburn of the Federal Communications Commission is at least keeping her sense of humor as the FCC's planned vote on rolling back net neutrality rules approaches on Dec 14. On Dec 12, a day net neutrality activists and various Web sites are trying to demonstrate how the Web would look without net neutrality rules, Commissioner Clyburn was trying to show what the rule rollback would look like without the language that excises those rules.

House Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Mike Doyle (D-PA) says he will propose using the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to overturn the Federal Communications Commission's rollback of net neutrality rules if FCC Chairman Ajit Pai does not stand down. That is the legislative maneuver Republicans used to invalidate a number of Obama-era regs earlier in 2017. “The answer to monopolies has always been regulation and competition, and as much as some of the FCC Commissioners don’t want to acknowledge it, Net Neutrality and the regulation of ISPs under Title II are essential for providing

Mozilla, BitTorrent, Reddit, Etsy and Patreon are among those driving calls to Congress as part of the Break the Internet network neutrality protest scheduled for Dec 12. That is according to Fight for the Future, which says it has created a tool that will allow protestors to auto-tweet net neutrality messages every 10 minutes in the 48 hours running up to the FCC's planned December 14 vote. 

Various groups have taken the Federal Communications Commission to court, appealing its decision on speeding the transition to fiber and the retirement of legacy network to the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, generally thought to be a more friendly venue than the DC Circuit. Asking the Ninth Circuit to reverse and vacate the November order were Public Knowledge, The Greenlining Institute, The Utility Reform Network, and the National Association of State Utility Advocates.

Federal Communications Commission member Mignon Clyburn took to the streets, literally, speaking to protestors outside the Federal Communications Bar Association's chairman's dinner, where FCC Chairman Ajit Pai was the featured jokester. She was also highlighting a letter to the FCC from various elected officials (mostly mayors), including mayors of New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. They called on the FCC to preserve its 2015 rules.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai took aim at Sinclair and Verizon, but mostly at himself, at the Federal Communications Bar Association Dinner in Washington, an annual self-roast of sorts in front of a crowd of lawyers, lobbyists and journalists at the Hilton Hotel.

Free Press, United Church of Christ, and the almost half dozen others who are challenging the Federal Communications Commission's decision to reinstate the UHF discount, have told a federal court that nothing in the arguments from the government and broadcasters has changed the relevant facts.  That came in its reply brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

A tiny cable operator is taking on AT&T over the price of regional sports, raising issues of access to programming and anticompetitive conduct. The suit comes days after the Justice Department filed suit to block the Time Warner merger over just those concerns.

Diversity groups supporting Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai's network neutrality rule rollback have been meeting with FCC officials to make sure that those diverse interests continue to be protected and advanced in a new net-neutrality enforcement regime.