Ownership

At our November open meeting, we'll be tackling top priorities: curtailing unlawful robocalls, unleashing 5G wireless connectivity, enabling the next generation of broadcast television, speeding infrastructure deployment, and modernizing our media ownership rules.

Lifeline: Speaking of bridging the digital divide, the Lifeline program is an important component of the Commission's efforts to bring digital opportunity to low-income Americans. But when I testified on Capitol Hill last month, I heard loud and clear from Democratic and Republican Senators alike that the program is in need of serious reform. For starters, we need to crack down on waste, fraud, and abuse. And we will. For instance, right now, Lifeline recipients in cities like Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Reno, Nevada receive an enhanced Tribal subsidy, intended for rural Tribal lands, of $34.25 a month, while those in other cities receive the standard $9.25 subsidy. Giving residents of Tulsa and Reno an extra $25 per month subsidy is a waste of money given that the cost of providing service in those cities is far lower there than it is in poorer, rural areas. Therefore, at our November meeting, the Commission will aim to close this loophole and limit the enhanced Tribal subsidy to those actually living on Tribal lands in rural areas. We'll also vote to solicit public input on how to effectively and efficiently direct Lifeline funds to the areas where they are most needed and to do so consistent with the FCC's legal authority. And we'll give Lifeline recipients better service and more choices–such as by eliminating a current prohibition on Lifeline broadband beneficiaries changing service providers for an entire year.

Media Ownership: We will be voting on modernizing our media ownership rules to reflect the marketplace of the present, not the past. President Clinton's first FCC Chairman stated, "Under current conditions, the FCC's [newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership] rule is perverse." In 2017, the FCC is poised to finally bring our media ownership rules into the digital age. If this proposed Order is adopted, the FCC would make five significant nods to reality. First, we would once and for all eliminate the newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership rule. In this day and age, if you want to buy a newspaper, you deserve a roadmap, not a roadblock. Second, we would eliminate the radio/television cross-ownership rule, which is unnecessary in today's marketplace given the Commission's separate local radio and local television ownership rules. Third, we would revise the local television ownership rule to eliminate the eight-voices test and incorporate a case-by-case review into the top-four restriction. This would better reflect the competitive conditions in local markets. Fourth, we would eliminate the attribution rule for television joint sales agreements, finding that JSAs serve the public interest by allowing broadcasters to better serve their local markets. And fifth, we would finally establish an incubator program to encourage greater diversity in and new entry into the media business and seek comment on what the details of that program should be.

From the earliest days of broadcasting, federal regulation has sought to foster the provision of programming that meets local communities' needs and interests. The FCC’s rules have been rooted in the core values of localism, competition, and diversity. Any changes in FCC rules should be aimed at expanding the multiplicity of voices and choices that support our marketplace of ideas and that sustain American democracy and creativity.

Instead of the proposal before us now, the FCC should be considering policies that encourage:
Viewpoint diversity to ensure that the public has access to “a wide range of diverse and antagonistic opinions and interpretations.” FCC rules should facilitate opportunities for varied groups, entities, and individuals to participate in the different phases of the broadcast industry;
Outlet diversity, opening control of media outlets to a variety of independent owners;
Source diversity so the public has access to information and programming from multiple content providers; and
Program diversity so broadcasting delivers a variety of programming formats and content.

As the probes of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election turn to the role of social-media giants, Facebook is looking to boost its influence in Washington amid talk of potential federal regulation. The Menlo Park (CA) company has invested more than $8.4 million this year on its 36-member federal lobbying team—putting it on track to spend more on federal lobbying than in any previous year.

The company recently added Republican-led Hamilton Place Strategies and other communications strategists to its team and posted an ad seeking a crisis communications specialist. The tech giant also held several focus-group sessions last week hosted by Quadrant Strategies, a Democratic-led research firm. People familiar with the sessions said public relations professionals and other Washington insiders were among the attendees. Facebook was soliciting advice as to how best to respond to the Russia ad controversy—and how to communicate with Republicans in particular, apparently.

CBS’s Mark Knoller crunched the numbers. After President Donald Trump’s interview with Lou Dobbs on the Fox Business Network on Oct 25, President Trump has now participated in interviews with Fox News Channel or affiliated networks 18 times — out of 26 television interviews in total. Combined, President Trump has granted five interviews to NBC, MSNBC, ABC and CBS, in total. He has given three to the Christian Broadcasting Network and Trinity Broadcasting Network. And he has given zero to CNN.

The House Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing on network neutrality and the role of antitrust for Nov 1. The Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law, which will hold the hearing, has not released details, but the event is likely to address concerns that internet service providers stifle competition. The hearing comes as Republicans in the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) put their finishing touches on a plan to scrap net neutrality. The agency has not released a timeline for when it will release and vote on the final version of Chairman Ajit Pai’s proposal to roll back the rules, but telecommunication insiders speculate that a vote could come as soon as December.

Facebook, Twitter and Google played a far deeper role in Donald Trump's presidential campaign than has previously been disclosed, with company employees taking on the kind of political strategizing that campaigns typically entrust to their own staff or paid consultants, according to a new study released Oct 26. The peer-reviewed paper, based on more than a dozen interviews with both tech company staffers who worked inside several 2016 presidential campaigns and campaign officials, sheds new light on Silicon Valley's assistance to Trump before his surprise win last November.

While the companies call it standard practice to work hand-in-hand with high-spending advertisers like political campaigns, the new research details how the staffers assigned to the 2016 candidates frequently acted more like political operatives, doing things like suggesting methods to target difficult-to-reach voters online, helping to tee up responses to likely lines of attack during debates, and scanning candidate calendars to recommend ad pushes around upcoming speeches. Such support was critical for the Trump campaign, which didn’t invest heavily in its own digital operations during the primary season and made extensive use of Facebook, Twitter and Google "embeds" for the general election, says the study, conducted by communications professors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Utah.

Public Knowledge joined conservative groups -- including the Tea Party Patriots and Frontiers of Freedom -- in a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions requesting that the Department of Justice block or condition the proposed AT&T-Time Warner merger.

The letter states: “As entities that closely follow the US media landscape, we are acutely aware that AT&T and Time Warner are already massive media conglomerates in their own rights. AT&T’s 2015 purchase of DirecTV made it the country’s top pay-TV firm, the No. 2 wireless provider, and the No. 3 broadband company. Time Warner, meanwhile, owns CNN and HBO, three of the top five general entertainment cable networks, and the second largest movie studio in Warner Brothers. We are deeply concerned that allowing these firms to join forces -- without significant conditions that fully address all competitive concerns -- would intolerably limit consumers’ control over what they watch and where they get their information. The First Amendment is the bulwark of political discourse, and the proposed AT&T-Time Warner merger will necessarily further restrict the diversity of speech which strengthens our nation as it becomes in the new company’s interest to promote select channels over alternative outlets. At this time where giant media companies are aggressively seeking to consolidate, our antitrust laws have rarely been a more potent and needed defender of American consumers of all stripes and ideologies.”

Twitter said it overstated its number of users for the past three years and committed to take advertising off its site from two Russian media outlets, even as it reported modest user growth for the third quarter. Twitter said it will no longer accept advertising from all accounts owned by Russian-backed news outlets RT and Sputnik. Federal intelligence officials say RT is “the Kremlin’s principal international propaganda outlet.“ Twitter’s decision marks a stark change to its previous stance of accepting advertising from these groups. The RT editor in chief said in a tweet on Oct 26 that Twitter approached RT ahead of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election to pitch ways RT could advertise on Twitter during this period.

Since this is my first official speech, I want to highlight a few of the issues I hope to focus on during my time on the Federal Communications Commission. I intend for this to be the beginning of a conversation. I welcome all stakeholders to reach out with ideas on where you think the FCC should be heading.

I want to focus my remarks this morning on some of the ways the FCC can incentivize even greater broadband deployment. This is particularly important as we make the transition to 5G—a shift that will require a massive investment in both wired and wireless infrastructure. In fact, if we get the right policies in place, this transition could mean $275 billion in network investment, three million new jobs, and a half a trillion dollars added to the GDP. So how do we get there? How do we ensure that the United States wins the global race to 5G? I want to talk this morning about three of the key pieces—(1) spectrum, (2) infrastructure, and (3) ensuring we have the skilled workforce in place to deploy these next-generation networks—before I talk more broadly about the need for regulatory reform.

For years, the country’s biggest technology companies have been virtually untouchable in Washington. The public adored the companies’ new devices, educators embraced their tools and politicians extolled their contributions to the economy. Even traditionally powerful voices, like media and telecom businesses, found little success in criticizing the technology industry. But now, as lawmakers look into how Russia used Google, Facebook and Twitter to influence the 2016 presidential election, many critics see a rare opening — and are lining up to take their shots.

The action is nascent, but gaining momentum fast. Lawmakers are pushing for regulations for technology companies for the first time in years, encouraged along by big tech’s broad assortment of rivals. For several weeks, a group of companies including smaller tech companies and entertainment and retail businesses has informally begun regular meetings and conference calls to compare notes about Google, Facebook and Amazon and to find a way to join in a stronger opposition force. But even as they sense an opportunity today, the rivals say that challenging the internet companies remains a daunting task. They doubt they can put a dent into the online ad duopoly of Facebook and Google. It will also be difficult, they say, to restrain Amazon’s fast movement into new markets, given the company’s willingness to lose money to gain a foothold.