Washington Beat

A key Senate Democrat is sounding the alarm over a series of recent actions by the Trump Administration targeting public broadcasting, including cutting NPR and PBS funding and proposing a budget that would eliminate the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

A daytime-only Class D AM radio station in Remsen, N.Y., with an FM translator serving the Utica-Rome, N.Y., market can proceed with its license renewal. To accomplish this, it has entered into a Consent Decree with the FCC, which dismissed an informal objection seeking a stop to the renewal.

On Friday night, the U.S. Department of Education notified the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) that its 2020-2025 Ready To Learn grant is terminated, effective immediately. CPB has responded to the move.

As AEI nonresident Senior Fellow Clay Calvert writes, "the predictability" that exists at the FCC under Chairman Brendan Carr is that most Democrats (and some Republicans) will view many of its prominent investigations as blatantly partisan efforts to aid President Trump and attack press freedom. That hurts the Commission.

He has been part of the Scripps D.C. sales team for the last six years, serving as a senior manager of business operations, Director of National Sales Operations and Senior Director of National Sales Operations. Now he's being promoted to VP of Political and "Pay for Performance" at The E.W. Scripps Co.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr says the agency is moving forward with an effort to "terminate" more than 2,000 official proceedings that have become dormant and, in his view, "no longer serve a purpose for the American people." It's unread to the "Delete, Delete, Delete" initiative that has captured the media's attention.

The President/CEO of America's Public Television Stations says the organization is "deeply concerned" by a late-night Executive Order signed by President Trump on May 1 that directs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to stop direct and indirect funding of both PBS and NPR.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) has awarded the latest in a series of grants to prioritize local reporting, with a big grant being given to the Appalachia + Mid-South Newsroom (AMSN).

A proposal that many radio broadcast station owners disapprove of appeared to advance out of the Senate Commerce Committee during its Wednesday session and move on to a floor vote by the full Senate. But, that piece of legislation particularly disliked by AM radio station owners, is on hold thanks to a technicality.

In a move that differentiates the organization from many of the nation's largest radio broadcasting companies and the NAB, the leading advocacy group representing Black-owned station owners has asked the FCC not to weaken the rules establishing "subcaps" for both AM and FM radio in the U.S.

What happens when you fail to pay your regulatory fees associated with an AM radio station for 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2022 and 2023, and it's nearly halfway through 2025? You pay up or show cause as to why you can't. A station owner in Kentucky has 60 days to do just that.

To be clear, the Washington, D.C. non-profit, non-partisan technology policy think tank led by President Berin Szóka supports the FCC’s goal of efficiency and modernization of outdated regulations. That said, TechFreedom has words of caution when it comes to its "Delete, Delete, Delete" docket.

As expected, the full House of Representatives has passed H.R. 2482, legislation that will reauthorize the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, giving it set appropriations for fiscal years 2025 and 2026. 

Al Sikes and Tom Wheeler have teamed up to pen an opinion piece for Newsweek that slams the current Chairman and President Trump for having "upended 90 years of precedent and Congressional mandates to transform the agency into a blatantly partisan tool."

The FCC has agreed to new sharing rules that the Carr Commission believes will "bolster innovative commercial uses" in the lower 37 GHz spectrum band. With this proceeding, Chairman Carr believes the new licensing framework could unlock 600 MHz of spectrum for new and more intensive commercial services.