Washington Beat

Forget Entercom and Cumulus Media -- the biggest headlines of the day came right from Capitol Hill, as top House Republicans including Rep. Paul Ryan introduced legislation that would greatly change the U.S. tax code. The changes could effect every business, or household, and there's already chatter about caps to mortgage-interest deductions, bushwhacking to the corporate tax rate, and shrinking the seven tax brackets for families and individuals to four. What it will do for broadcast media, and the ability to fully deduct business advertising expenses, got the NAB's seal of approval.

Don't think for a minute that the potential growth in in-home listening from Smart Speakers from makers such as Amazon Echo and Google Home are only for big-city broadcasters? There's gold in them thar hills, valleys and villages for radio broadcasters, and Mississippi Republican Sen. Roger Wicker is about to let the nation know all about it.

Thus far into the 115th U.S. Congress, multiple efforts to bring additional royalty payments to radio stations across the U.S. appear to be flailing and twitching like one of the Walking Dead. Now, it appears that any tax reform measure that would change a business' ability to fully deduct the costs of advertising in the year they are incurred may be as equally challenged from gaining support of legislators on both side of Capitol Hill.

An associate attorney at the top D.C. law firm has taken the role of Deputy General Counsel for the Federal Communications Commission. She'll direct all administrative law issues for the agency, and settled in to her new office at the Portals today.

There are plenty of concerns surfacing across the nation about the proposed merger between Sinclair Broadcast Group and Tribune Media. The latest entity to voice its opposition to the deal is an association representing some 800 of the smallest, mostly rural cable operators scattered throughout the U.S. 

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.), in an opinion piece released Friday, raises questions surrounding business practices by tech companies and their impact on consumers. The op-ed also announces a series of hearings the committee will hold next month to examine how actions taken by online businesses affect consumers’ privacy and choices without their knowledge. If you're a local broadcast media company, this knowledge could prove powerful in your client conversations for dollars and buys.

If there was one key takeaway from the FCC's 110-page opus that spells out the authorization of permissive use of the next-gen broadcast TV standard -- a.k.a. GN Docket No. 16-142 -- it's this: "It is premature to address any issues that may arise with respect to the voluntary carriage of ATSC 3.0 signals before broadcasters begin transmitting in this new voluntary standard."

Word up ... Comcast didn't discriminate "by reducing distribution" of a religious broadcast network targeting African American consumers "without a valid business justification." That's the key takeaway from a ruling released Friday by the Media Bureau, which also determined that Comcast negotiated carriage agreements without violating financial interest provisions of the Commission's rules.

A group of six senior Members of the U.S. Senate have written to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and the leaders of Verizon and Univision Communications to voice their concerns about the ongoing retransmission consent dispute between the two companies. They're not taking sides, but they want a resolution: Pronto.

"One of the most powerful forces in government is inertia," says FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. "Rules that get on the books stay on the books, sometimes long after the rationale that underlay their adoption is gone." And, with those words, the head of the Federal Communications Commission laid out his rationale for Thursday's revelation of an actual order set for introduction at its November Open Meeting that would bring major changes to the agency's media ownership rules.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai on Thursday circulated proposed legislation that would, in his view and that of GOP leaders, "modernize" the agency's media ownership regulations. This resulted in cheers from the NAB. It also led Democratic Commissioner Mignon Clyburn to use a portion of her opening statement at Wednesday's House Subcommittee on Communications FCC Oversight Hearing to voice her strong opposition to Pai's plan.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai made it clear that what he had to say at the House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology's FCC Oversight Hearing on Wednesday afternoon would grab the biggest headlines — duopolies will soon be possible in every market across the U.S., and cross-ownership rules will be heading into major rewrite mode very soon. Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) couldn't have been more pleased. This "bombshell" announcement deflected attention away from her proclamation that there would be no twisting and turning of the discussion by leading Democrats "to try to turn this hearing into the Trump Tweet hearing."

The House Energy & Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Communications and Technology took several hours today to hold its second FCC Oversight hearing of the current Congress. There were some entertaining moments -- including a shot from Democratic Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel about her "vacation" courtesy of the Senate. But, the top words said for broadcasters came from FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. He revealed plans to modernize broadcast media ownership, and the NAB is delighted.

Roughly one hour east of San Antonio lies the city of Gonzales, Texas. On the FM band, one can hear the primary station for an increasingly popular Americana network branded as "Sun Radio" — KCTI-FM 88.1. Those call letters presented a problem to Texas Public Radio. Why? Those are the same call letters of its station on the AM dial, licensed to Gonzales. The FCC's Media Bureau reviewed the matter, and it has now rendered its decision.

Fiery dissent from the FCC's two Democratic Commissioners couldn't sway at least one of their three Republican colleagues to vote alongside them on a matter of keen interest to radio and TV station owners. As a result, in a 3-2 party-line vote, the elimination of the main studio rule is on its way to fruition, putting an end to a regulation crafted — as Commissioner Brendan Carr noted in his comments — just months before the start of World War II.