Washington Beat

Barring the unexpected, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai entered the day all but assured of a second term at the FCC, ensuring he will remain the leader through the end of June 2021. The U.S. Senate made it official Monday afternoon (10/2), confirming him for a second term that retroactively began July 1, 2016, in a 52-41 vote.

In an announcement made Monday by the Commission, Chairman Ajit Pai has appointed a research professor of computer science at Georgetown University to serve as the agency’s Chief Technology Officer. This individual will start work at the FCC later this month and succeeds Dr. Henning Schulzrinne, who has returned to a position at Columbia University.

The fourth quarter is here, and as we prepare to review the next batch of earnings reports from broadcast media companies, those inside the C-Suite may wish to take note of what Wilkinson Barker Knauer partner David Oxenford calls the "numerous regulatory obligations" that the next 30 days will bring. Here, we review what many TV companies will need to put on their calendars and mark, in red, today.

Three Democratic members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee have once again asked FCC Chairman Ajit Pai for answers to a series of questions "he failed to address" in his response to an Aug. 14 letter sent to Pai from the legislators regarding Sinclair Broadcast Group. Among those displeased with Pai is New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's likely confirmation by the U.S. Senate, giving him a retroactive five-year term, will come late Monday after another 2 1/2 hours of debate in the upper body of Congress. What's still uncertain is the renomination of Republican Commissioner Brendan Carr for a five-year term starting next summer.

Doug Ferber of DEFcom Advisors LLC and Erwin Krasnow of Garvey Schubert Barer have created a special podcast series exclusively for RBR+TVBR members based on a series of articles centered on the topic "Broadcast Deal Myths Debunked." In this fourth episode, Ferber and Krasnow discuss the topic of cash flow multiples, "The Perfect Yardstick."

The NAB on Thursday filed an "ex parte" letter with the FCC that details a meeting held two days ago with select Commission staff. The broadcast media industry's chief advocacy group used the opportunity to discuss the Commission’s plans to reimburse expenses for stations that are involuntarily repacked as part of the broadcast spectrum incentive auction. Specifically, the NAB asked the FCC to make initial allocations as close as possible to 80% to commercial broadcast TV stations for auction repack expenses.

The FCC's Media Bureau and Wireless Telecommunications Bureau have singled out all of the proposals in the Commission's recent seven-day FM translator application window that are mutually exclusive with other proposals, and moved forward with "a limited period" for those applicants to enter into settlement agreements — or otherwise resolve their mutual exclusivities by means of engineering solutions.

Emmis Communications head Jeff Smulyan has been adamantly vocal on the need to activate FM chips in the iPhone. A tronc inc. newspaper's Sept. 15 editorial blasted Apple for its refusal to turn on the chips. Now, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has joined the fight. However, Pai's comments come following criticism from a Democratic Commissioner on the FCC's response to the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Puerto Rico, following Hurricane Irma.

NPR will provide up to 30 stations across ten states with software and training to connect with the PRSS MetaPub delivery system. That's all thanks for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which President Trump has suggested should be entirely de-funded by the Federal government.

A Democratic Member of the U.S. Senate this morning spoke out against changes to the FCC's rules regarding Net Neutrality, noting that as long as Chairman Ajit Pai continues to support the end of Title II classification for broadband, she can't support his vote for staying on as the agency's leader. Immediately following the anti-Pai rally call came details of a GOP tax reform proposal that the NAB says helps broadcasters.

Mark Jamison, a visiting Fellow with the American Enterprise Institute’s Center for Internet, Communication, and Technology who serves as Director and Gunter Professor of the Public Utility Research Center at the University of Florida, has been vocal about his desire to reform the FCC. In this Media Information Bureau column, Jamison shares his thoughts on radio spectrum, and how it could be increased.

Nearly five years ago, a resident of North Miami, Fla., was handed a Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture of $25,000 for his efforts designed "to evade detection" of an unlicensed radio operation. Today, the FCC still hasn't silenced the pirate radio operation serving the area's sizable Haitian population. A proposed maximum fine nearly six times that 2012 financial penalty seeks to squelch the broadcasting buccaneer once and for all.

In the first 5-0 unanimous vote of the new FCC led by Chairman Ajit Pai, the Commission has given the green light to a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would eliminate rules requiring TV stations, along with cable entities and FM translators, to keep paper copies of FCC rules. Commissioner Mignon Clyburn was no longer skeptical of the proposal, while newly arrived Republican Brendan Carr was quite vocal of the need to modernize the FCC.

Five Members of the House of Representatives and one Senator have joined as co-sponsors of a bipartisan resolution that opposes "any new performance fee, tax, royalty, or other charge" on local broadcast radio stations. With a bill that would impose royalty payments on airplay of copyrighted recorded works flailing in the House, it's looking ever-less likely that the recording industry will be victorious in its latest efforts to stem a tremendous profit slide.