Broadcasting&Cable

The Federal Communications Commission has resolved its investigation into a couple of Nexstar stations, which follows its dismissal of a retransmission complaint against the broadcaster, which comes in the context of FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's circulation of an item approving Nexstar's merger with Tribune. The FCC was looking into whether its KARK-TV Little Rock and KFDX-TV Wichita was meeting its childrens television programming requirements--specifically whether they had filed the requisite quarterly reports. Nexstar will pay a fine of $109,076. 

While the Justice Department signed off on Nexstar's purchase of Tribune in July with TV station spin-offs in 13 markets, the Federal Communications Commission has yet to complete its public interest review of the merger. Currently, the deal is on day 192 of the FCC's informal 180-day shot clock. That 180-day shot clock not an official deadline, and the FCC has occasionally gone far past it, as it did in the Nexstar-Media General merger, when it took 329 days to sign off.

Backed by the Justice Department, the Federal Communications Commission as told the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that it knew what it was doing when it deregulated pole attachments, and had the authority to do it. The FCC voted in Aug 2018 (unanimously, though with one partial dissent) to adopt various reforms related to new broadband attachments on utility poles. The petitioners, a group of electric utilities companies, challenged the FTC's authority to undertake the reforms in Oct.

President Donald Trump has ramped up his attacks on and threats aimed at the press. On Aug 18, President tweeted criticisms of The New York Times and the state of journalism in general: "The Failing New York Times, in one of the most devastating portrayals of bad journalism in history, got caught by a leaker that they are shifting  from their Phony Russian Collusion Narrative (the Mueller Report & his testimony were a total disaster), to a Racism Witch Hunt....'Journalism' has reached a new low in the history of our Country.