Broadcasting&Cable

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, testifying at a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing, pushed back on recent reports suggesting the politicization of the government's review of the AT&T and Time Warner merger. Last week, it was widely reported that the Department of Justice asked AT&T in a Monday meeting to divest Turner as a condition of winning approval, possibly owing to President Donald Trump's distaste for CNN. "First, I would say that I don't accept, and cannot accept, the accuracy of that news report," Sessions told Rep Hank Johnson (D-GA).

The Federal Communications Commission has approved John Malone’s (Liberty Interactive)  $1.1 billion deal to buy Alaskan cable and phone company General Communication Inc. (GCI). The Justice Department signaled last July it had no antitrust issues with the deal. GCI has about 108,000 cable sub in Alaska and is the state’s largest telephone and wireless company.  The FCC imposed no conditions in granting the application, saying it posed no potential harms to the public interest. In the same order it denied the petitions to deny or condition the deal.

Barry Diller, chairman of edge provider IAC (ask.com, The Daily Beast, and Angie's List, among many others) told CNBC he doesn't care what the Federal Communications Commission does or doesn't do about network neutrality because he doesn't think that neutrality can now be violated. Tasked to weigh in on the issue given the Trump Administration pledge to roll back Title II -- FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is expected to proposed that rollback soon. "I think it is over," he said. "I don't care what they do about net neutrality. It is [the] practice of the world," he said.

A large group of associations representing smaller entities has called on the bipartisan leadership of the HouseCommerce Committee to support a bipartisan bill providing them some regulatory relief at the Federal Communications Commission. They wrote the chair and ranking member of the committee to register their support for the Small Entity Regulatory Relief Opportunity (SERRO) Act (HR 3787), which is being considered as part of legislation to reauthorize the FCC now being considered by the full committee.

The National Grange, which advocates for rural and agricultural interests, has joined with Consumer Action and the former chair of the Oglala Sioux Tribe Utility commission to oppose Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai's proposal to revamp the FCC's Lifeline low income advanced communications subsidy program, called Lifeline. They used words highly charged words like "knock out," "cripple," "kill" and "destroy" to characterize the proposal. The Grange et al.

So what does it mean for a government agency to be on the side of innovation? Having served on the FCC since 2012, I’ve certainly had time to think about that question. And I’ve come to the conclusion that the most effective strategy for seizing the opportunities of the digital age is promoting the power of free markets. Instead of viewing innovation as a problem to be regulated based on rules from the past, government should see innovation’s potential, guided by markets that embrace the future.