John Eggerton

In a post-trial brief, AT&T and Time Warner said the government "came nowhere close" to proving the proposed AT&T-Time Warner merger violates antitrust laws. The companies said that the government's case was built on "non-probative competitor complaints, irrelevant slide shows," and a theoretical model of harm that collapsed under the weight of "real-world" evidence, then disintegrated upon first contact with real-world events, testimony, and data." The Justice Department had asserted that without spinoffs of Turner programming networks, the merger would mean substantially less comp

The US Office of Special Counsel (OSC) has wrapped up its investigation of Federal Communications Commissioner Michael O'Rielly's statements at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Feb. 23, 2018, and concluded he violated the Hatch Act prohibition on certain political activities by federal branch employees. He was issued a warning letter that a repeat of such statements could incur more than a warning.

Allied Progress, which is opposed to the Sinclair-Tribune deal, says it has placed a six-figure TV ad buy in Iowa to try to get viewers to pressure House Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) to hold hearings on the proposed merger. The group says Grassley has done nothing to scrutinize the merger despite the companies "many controversies." The ad says that "those choosing to compete in the state’s cherished Iowa Caucuses may be forced to face much more than a field of other candidates if the Sinclair-Tribune merger succeeds."

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has said the FCC does not plan to investigate reports that Dish, Tivo and ComScore may have given Cambridge Analytica "the specific viewing habits of many subscribers in the United States." Chairman Pai says the Federal Trade Commission should instead be the one investigating and added that he has forwarded the issue to the FTC. He said he was sure an inquiry would be in good hands.

Charter is ramping up its call for online privacy legislation that applies opt-in requirements on the sharing of personal info, no matter who is doing the sharing. That came in a letter to the Hill from Charter EVP Catherine Bohigian, which followed Charter CEO Tom Rutledge's blog two weeks ago calling for an opt-in regime for all. It also follows Hill hearings with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg three weeks ago and a concomitant boost in Hill sentiment for regulating edge players whose power has grown from "garage" to gargantuan.

Twenty-two US senators wrote Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai asking the FCC to stop making impacting the broadcast industry until it has taken a "holistic look" at the state of broadcasting and the media. They said they had noted Pai's elimination of local TV and radio ownership limits with growing concern. 

House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Rep James Hines (D-CT) testified before the House Judiciary Committee about alleged online censorship of conservative speech. The hearing was on "Filtering Practices of Social Media Platforms" and stemmed in part from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's testimony before Congress recently.  The first two panelists were members of Congress, and as such only presented statements and were not questioned afterward.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai wasn't predicting when the FCC's vetting of the Sinclair-Tribune deal would be complete, but suggested that the FCC had not yet had a chance to fully evaluate it. Sinclair filed its latest, and expected to be last, amendment to the deal earlier during the week of April 23.  

At a meeting of the Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee, David Redl, head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration said that the Administration was working on "a spectrum strategy" that should be unveiled "soon," but provided no more details. But that was enough to fire up wireless carriers looking for all the spectrum strategies, and new spectrum, they can get.

Democrats on the House Commerce Committee have an additional 600 questions for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg. Among the questions: