Broadcasting&Cable

Over three dozen journalist organizations including the Radio Television Digital News Association, National Press Foundation, and the Society of Professional Journalists, have asked President Barack Obama to drop the "excessive controls" on public information by federal agencies, branding it "politically driven suppression of news and information about federal agencies."

There has been an ongoing tension between broadcast, print and online journalists and the Obama Administration, with complaints that the Administration has limited access to events, while providing its own "coverage" through official channels.

In a letter to President Obama, the groups complained about policies that require journalists to go through public information officers (PIOs) before talking with staff and that have PIOs vetting interview questions and monitoring interviews with sources.

The Federal Communications Commission will give broadcasters and cable operators some flexibility when it comes to adding time-sensitive and "advanced" online clips to their closed captioning responsibilities, but will apply the same quality standards it applies to full-length TV shows and their full-length online incarnations.

Fox has been seeking a preliminary injunction and argues the district court was wrong, and in fact abused its discretion, in not finding Dish's allegedly infringing AutoHop DVR service culpable of irreparable harm, and denying the injunction, as did the Ninth Circuit on appeal in January 2014.

At issue are PrimeTime Anytime and AutoHop, key features of the Hopper Whole-Home HD DVR. Fox, which sued for breach of contract and copyright infringement, appealed the denial of the injunction, and argument was held on July 7 in the circuit's Pasadena courtroom.

Fox was looking to use broadcasters' recent victory in the Aereo case in the Supreme Court to buttress its argument, including pointing out that Dish had argued that it was merely an equipment provider, an Aereo argument that the Supremes rejected. It also pointed out the Supremes had reflected Aereo's argument (which it said was Dish's as well) that a performance was not public under the Copyright Act if each sub watches a unique stream.

Despite the greatly exaggerated reports over the years that the broadcast evening news daypart was on the demise, it is still alive and doing very well from a ratings standpoint.

Ironically, however, the fact has gone somewhat underreported -- the trade press and other media outlets give the evening news telecasts very little coverage compared to the morning shows, late-night and even the daytime soaps.

Media buyers know it as a place where the clients who want to reach a bit of an older audience can buy commercial time at a fraction of the cost of broadcast primetime -- 30% to 40% cheaper for a 30-second spot in the average primetime entertainment show. And while the big battle for viewers between ABC’s Good Morning America and NBC’s Today show in the mornings has been receiving continuous media coverage, those networks’ half-hour evening news shows are drawing virtually the same number of 18-49 viewers and viewers in the 25-54 “news” demo as the morning shows.

Of course, much like the morning news shows, the bulk of the audience is 55-plus for all three networks. Some 17 million of the nearly 25 million total viewers of the three networks’ evening news shows are 55-plus. While the evening news daypart has been losing viewers steadily over the past few decades, during the 2013-14 season, each of the networks’ evening news telecasts grew in viewers.

Overall this past season, the three networks cumulatively grew their viewership by 1.44 million -- not a huge amount but a gain nonetheless.

The National Association of Broadcasters has told the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit that the four challenges to the Federal Communications Commission's decision to make most TV joint sales agreements attributable as ownership interest should not be moved to the Third Circuit. That was the court that initially remanded the FCC's decade-old ownership rule revise back to the commission, where issues related to deregulation and diversity have yet to be resolved.

Prometheus Radio Project, which initially challenged the rule changes back in 2003, is one of the four challengers to the rules this time around as well (joined by Free Press, NABET, CWA and others) and filed in the Third Circuit. The DC circuit got the consolidated cases via lottery, which is how the court system decides when challenges are filed in multiple venues, but Prometheus petitioned to move the case to the Third, citing the precedent of the original challenge and decision out of that court.

NAB is challenging the FCC's decision to make joint sales agreements (JSA's) of over 15% attributable as ownership interests, saying the decision was arbitrary and capricious.

US Mayors want to take cable operators out of the equation when it comes to deciding how Public, Educational and Government (PEG) channels use their money, which comes from franchise fees.

At the United States Conference of Mayors annual meeting, the mayors agreed on a resolution asking Congress to change the law that now requires those monies to be used only for capital expenditures and not ongoing operations unless a franchisee agrees. They argue that restriction on the use of PEG money has led to the closing of more than 100 PEG access centers -- where the community can produce programming -- and to hundreds of PEG channels going dark in the last decade.

Former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Reed Hundt is suggesting the FCC may want to strip Redskins owner Dan Snyder of his radio station licenses if he does not change the name of the team.

Hundt said that the FCC should "reevaluate" whether Snyder is fit to be a licensee, by which Hundt meant "a person of appropriate character," he said.

“The FCC should consider whether Mr. Snyder is fit to own radio station licenses given that he uses radio stations to broadcast an ethnic slur,” he said. “These licenses are owned by the public and they are given to individuals for the purpose of serving the public interest. The FCC does not give radio station licenses to felons; it doesn’t give radio station licenses to people of bad character. Historically, [the FCC] has been reluctant to give broadcast licenses to people who advocate racially intolerant positions.”

Broadcasters were breathing a big sigh of relief after the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that Aereo was indeed providing a public performance of their work without compensation.

Their underlying challenge in the lower courts remains, and Aereo founder Chet Kanojia vowed to keep fighting.

But even though the Supreme Court reversal of the Second Circuit’s denial of an injunction against Aereo does not technically settle those lower court cases, it effectively does, with language that makes it clear what Aereo is and isn’t. What it is, says the court, is like a cable operator or other multichannel video programming distributor, and not simply a cool technology to access free stuff.

That could give the Federal Communications Commission some direction in its proceeding on how to define an over-the-top video service provider, and could also send the decision’s critics to Congress for help clarifying its impact on other technologies, as the court pointed out.

Political advertising is expected to reach $8.3 billion in 2014, according to a new report from Borrell Associates.

Borrell says that two thirds of that money will be spent between July 1 and Election Day and that the bulk continues to go towards traditional media, rather than digital outlets.

Borrell says that candidates and political organizations will spend $37 per voter in 2014, up 9% from the last mid-term election. It expects spending to jump to $51 per voter in 2016, up 21% from the previous presidential election year in 2012.

Political activist site Rootstrikers.org is seeking signatures on a petition to require the source of political ads to identify themselves in the Federal Communications Commission's political files.

That comes as the commission prepares on July 1 to require all stations to upload their political files to an online database, as the top stations in the top 50 markets have had to do.

"Disclosure of political ads offers our only glimpse into $300 million of secret money that floods our elections. But major TV executives refuse to obey the law," Rootstrikers wrote. "Others give misleading information on a loophole-ridden form created by industry lobbyists!"