Multichannel News

Sinclair Broadcasting released a lengthy statement in response to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai's move to designate the Tribune deal for hearing before the FCC's administrative law judge. Sinclair said it had misled no one, had complied with FCC rules, been transparent about what it was trying to do, and was willing to adjust the merger yet again -- it has submitted five versions so far --  to avoid the hearing and close the deal.

The full House Commerce Committee has scheduled a markup for more than a dozen bills July 12, including two broadband-related bills -- H.R. 3994, the Advancing Critical Connectivity Expands Service, Small Businesses Resources, Opportunities, Access, and Data Based on Assessed Need and Demand (ACCESS BROADBAND) Act, and H.R. 4881, the Precision Agriculture Connectivity Act of 2018.

When they set out on their own in 2012 after more than two decades working for one of the most revered names in the cable industry — the late Bill Bresnan, founder of Bresnan Communications — Jeff DeMond and Andrew Kober had a clear vision of where their respective futures lay. Broadband was the key. But not just any broadband. DeMond, CEO of Vyve Broadband, one of 2018’s Independent Operators of the Year, said he and Kober, Vyve’s chief financial officer, specifically looked for rural markets, territories that were essentially being shunned by larger, more established operators.

ACT: The App Association, which represents more than 5,000 app developers and device makers, said the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA) should be the one collecting and compiling data on broadband availability, not the Federal Communications Commission. "[T]he technology administration [NTIA] is more at home working across government agencies to put together an unbiased report," said ACT senior policy director Graham Dufault.

The Senate has passed a Farm Bill whose broadband section reins in potential overbuilding of commercial broadband operators with government broadband subsidies.