A survey of 5,700 SAG-AFTRA members has found that more than half of lesbian, gay and bisexual performers “have heard directors and producers make anti-gay comments about actors” and that “53% of LGBT respondents believed that directors and producers are biased against LGBT performers.” The study was conducted by UCLA’s LGBT think tank Williams Institute and funded by the SAG-Producers Industry Advancement and Cooperative Fund.
Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade
House Commerce Committee
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
1:30 pm
http://energycommerce.house.gov/hearing/%E2%80%9Ccross-border-data-flows...
The Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade will hear from experts to better understand the effects cross-border data flows have on the U.S. economy and jobs and examine how potential protectionist data policies could impact businesses.
[Commentary] Although network neutrality -- or Freedom Against Internet Restrictions, if you prefer -- grabbed many of the headlines this week, we’d like to highlight a September 4 speech by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler entitled “The Facts and Future of Broadband Competition.” To cut to the chase, Chairman Wheeler outlined an Agenda for Broadband Competition that establishes four principles for all of the FCC’s broadband activities.
Sen Dean Heller (R-NV) has called into question how the Federal Communications Commission is reviewing the proposed acquisitions of pay-television companies Time Warner Cable by Comcast and DirecTV by AT&T.
In a letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, Sen Heller requested information regarding any confidential meetings the agency has had with media companies as part of its regulatory review of the deals. The letter, in response to a recent article in The Wall Street Journal disclosing that the FCC was offering the cloak of anonymity to companies concerned about Comcast and AT&T, asked the agency to justify the reasons for the meetings. While people or companies can express concerns about the two deals by filing public comments at the FCC, an agency spokeswoman has said offering confidentiality to concerned parties is "an established part of the FCC's rules." Such confidentiality is typically granted if a company fears that going public could lead to reprisals or retribution. Typically, companies that meet with FCC officials disclose such meetings in ex-parte filings.
The Federal Communications Commission has requested a raft of additional documents from both AT&T and DirecTV as it vets AT&T’s acquisition. The information requests run to dozens of pages. For example, AT&T's letter includes 81 request. They include everything from regional sports network ownership, online video competition, and carriage negotiations, to the potential value to AT&T of DirecTV's Sunday Ticket package and just what benefits the deal will actually produce.
Comcast’s bid for Time Warner Cable may spare Netflix from having to continue paying for smooth display of content.
Regulators weighing the merger asked Comcast about its February agreement with Netflix that requires it to pay for fast delivery over the cable provider’s service. The questions show officials are preparing to help Web video companies that have asked the regulators to prohibit such payments, said Craig Moffett, an analyst with MoffettNathanson in New York. “I don’t think there’s any question about it -- the big winner in the Comcast merger is Netflix,” Moffett said. Regulators can demand conditions as a price for approving the acquisition.
The Expanding Opportunities for Broadcasters Coalition (EOBC) says it has been talking with broadcasters outside the coalition about the possibility of channel sharing, and says it has run across some problems with how the Federal Communications Commission set up the sharing system.
In a petition filed with the FCC EOBC writes, "The Commission appears to have inadvertently erected barriers that could drive many broadcasters away from the auction at a time when the FCC needs to be enlarging -- not reducing -- the pool of interested broadcasters." According to EOBC executive director Preston Padden, the petition is not adversarial but was in fact invited by the FCC. EOBC says the rules should be changed so that parties to sharing agreements are free to negotiate for common contractual rights, should be able to enter into sharing agreements after the auction, should be allowed to determine the length of those agreements, and if a sharing station relinquishes its license, the shared spectrum should revert to the sharing partner(s), not the FCC.
Sprint is the only major US wireless-service carrier intending to pass on an auction of frequencies designed to accommodate data-guzzling smartphones.
A spokesman confirmed that Sprint won’t participate in the November sale, which the Federal Communications Commission expects to be the largest since a $19 billion auction in 2008. Verizon Communications., AT&T, and T-Mobile US all said they’re interested in bidding. “Sprint really has a lot more spectrum than its rivals, so they don’t have that pressing need to get more,” said John Butler, a senior telecommunications analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence. In addition, Sprint doesn’t hold airwaves that would be easily compatible with the frequencies to be offered, he said.
The Federal Communications Commission’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) issue this joint public notice to provide information about Federal/non-Federal coordination in the AWS–3 bands in which Federal incumbents have spectrum assignments.
We jointly refine certain AWS–3 Protection Zones, reducing them from nationwide scope to more specific geographic areas. We provide information and guidance on the overall coordination process, as contemplated by the AWS–3 R&O, including informal pre-coordination discussions and the formal process of submitting coordination requests and receiving results from relevant agencies. Also, we provide refined Protection Zones for AWS–3 licenses for which proximity to certain Federal satellite uplink stations could potentially cause harmful interference into AWS–3 licensee base stations along with a streamlined option for satisfying this coordination requirement.
[Commentary] Why has the network neutrality debate proven so one-sided? I think the reason is simple: people hate their cable company.
Internet service providers and cable television companies are the two least popular industries in the American economy, and the two biggest cable companies, Comcast and Time Warner, are the least popular companies in these industries. This means that any time the nation's biggest cable companies get involved in a policy dispute, the public instinctively takes the other side. Most people don't have an informed opinion on the merits of reclassification or the feasibility of forbearance. But many strongly believe, from personal experience, that cable companies will do anything to make a buck.
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