Washington Beat

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has signed off on grant support of $2.65 million to increase and strengthen state government coverage provided by public media in seven U.S. states. The coverage generated will be shared with public media stations as well as other media organizations across the states. 

The FCC has released its latest broadcast station totals, reflecting the three-month period ending September 30. The biggest takeaway? A wave of new FM noncommercial radio stations came to life in Q3, while the total number of AM radio stations declined for the second consecutive quarter.

As previously reported, the Chairwoman of the FCC on Friday traveled to Western North Carolina to get a firsthand account of communications recovery efforts in the storm-battered region.  At the same time, her chief legislative rival at the FCC also visited the state.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) has handed a sizable multi-thousand dollar grant to a key public media distributor for a pilot that is designed to enable free access to the PRX digital platform for 30 non-commercial secular stations.

CPB has awarded a total of 30 grants to date through the first round of funding for the Next Generation Warning System grant program, funded by FEMA. Stations in Alabama, Indiana, Louisiana, Missouri, Tennessee, and Virginia are the latest to receive funding to upgrade equipment for public safety.

The FCC’s Enforcement Bureau is bolstering its technical expertise with the appointment of a new Chief Technology Officer. In this role, the former Verizon Senior Director will provide strategic and technical guidance to support the Bureau’s work in privacy, data protection, cybersecurity, and network outage enforcement for cable and satellite providers.

Through attorneys Michael DelNero and John Cobb at Covington & Burling, The Walt Disney Company last week asked the FCC to dismiss DirecTV's "Good Faith" complaint without delay, slamming the company poised to merge with Dish for its "baseless" filing with the Commission.

Based in Memphis, Howard Robertson, CEO and Founder of Spotset Radio Network, is laser-focused on bringing political advertising to Black radio. He wonders if the Harris-Walz campaign is ignoring the power of Black-owned media. To learn more, RBR+TVBR welcomes Robertson to this InFOCUS Podcast, presented by dot.fm.

T-Mobile has agreed to "important forward-looking commitments to address foundational security flaws, work to improve cyber hygiene, and adopt robust modern architectures, like zero trust and phishing-resistant multi-factor authentication." Oh, it will also pay a multimillion-dollar civil penalty to the U.S. Treasury.

"Newsmax is pleased to announce it has resolved the litigation brought by Smartmatic through a confidential settlement." That's all the Boca Raton, Fla.-headquartered conservative-leaning cable news network had to share on Thursday afternoon.

The FCC at its September Open Meeting this morning approved in a 4-1 vote a $6 million forfeiture order for political consultant Steve Kramer in response to unlawful robocalls made using "deepfake," AI-generated voice cloning technology and caller ID spoofing.

The Democratic nominee for U.S. President has launched a series of digital and radio ads targeting rural and Republican voters in Pennsylvania. The radio ads complement a geotargeted digital video ad featuring the same message.

Are issue ads entitled to the Lowest Unit Rate? Is the broadcaster exempt from liability for false statements? Must the broadcaster allow opposing views on its air? Many think the answers to these questions are "Yes." Think again, veteran Washington, D.C. attorney Gregg Skall says in this classic column.

Davina Sashkin, David Oxenford and the team at Wilkinson Barker Knauer are welcoming a new Partner. He formerly served as  Deputy Bureau Chief of the FCC's Wireline Competition Bureau.

It is licensed to serve Morris and Union Counties in northern New Jersey as a daytime-only AM radio station with an FM translator. Soon, it could be silenced for good, however.  Why? The station's owner is extremely tardy with its annual FCC regulatory fees.