Ownership

Cable One has entered into a definitive agreement to purchase the 85% of Hargray Acquisition Holdings that it doesn’t already own. The deal, which implies a $2.2 billion total enterprise value for Hargray, is expected to close in the second quarter. Hargray offers gigabit-capable services to approximately 99% of its customers in 14 markets in Alabama, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. Cable One, which offers service in 21 states, now focuses primarily on broadband, despite the word “cable” in its name.

Senate Antitrust Subcommittee Chair Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) introduced sweeping new legislation to reinvigorate America’s antitrust laws and restore competition to American markets. The Competition and Antitrust Law Enforcement Reform Act will:

T-Mobile and Shenandoah Telecommunications Company (Shentel) settled their dispute over the purchase price of Shentel’s wireless assets, with the final price coming in at $1.95 billion. Shentel was a Sprint affiliate since 1995 and was still using the Sprint brand post-merger. Shentel had about 1.1 million subscribers as of June 30, 2020. Shentel also offers cable and wireline services. T-Mobile and Shentel expect the transaction will close in the second quarter 2021 after satisfying customary closing conditions and obtaining required regulatory approvals.  

Rates for many of the communications and content services we’ve all grown to rely on over the last year have risen recently or will rise in 2021, and there’s little you can do about it. Pay-TV service providers have watched their revenue decline as a growing number of Americans cut the cable cord and rely instead on internet-based streaming services. To compensate, and to keep shareholders happy, the industry keeps steadily increasing the cost of broadband internet access — and claiming that the higher fees are justified by ongoing investments in data networks.

Many Democrats, as well as some Republicans, want to take on Big Tech with laws and regulations to address issues like market power, data privacy, and disinformation and hate speech. Those ambitions have only grown since the insurrection of Capitol Hill, with more members of Congress pointing to the power of the tech companies as the root cause of many problems. The growing talk of new federal laws adds to the industry’s many headaches. Facebook and Google are fighting federal and state regulators in court over allegations of anticompetitive conduct.

President Biden is inheriting tricky tech questions including how to rein in powerful digital superstars, what to do about Chinese technology and how to bring more Americans online. Here’s a glimpse at opportunities and challenges in technology policy for the new Biden administration:

Social-media giants are under attack for censorship, but a few years ago they positioned themselves as champions of free speech. At issue was “net neutrality,” the Obama-era policy that treated internet service providers like Comcast and AT&T as common carriers—akin to the old Ma Bell monopoly—by prohibiting them from discriminating among content providers, including the social-media sites. Facebook and Twitter turned out to be more threatening than under threat.

The Supreme Court waded into a two-decade long debate over the extent to which the Federal Communications Commission can relax media ownership rules. At stake are recent FCC moves toward deregulation, allowing the common ownership of a newspaper and broadcast stations in the same market, as well as giving more leeway for media companies to own more than one TV and radio outlet in the same city.

As the nation grapples with the violent insurrection fueled by President Trump’s lies and divisive rhetoric, as well as a surging pandemic and economic upheaval, the local broadcast media’s job of providing communities with reliable news and information has never been more important. Communities deserve a diverse array of voices and perspectives in the media on critical issues such as economic and racial justice and investigative reporting that holds power accountable. Who owns and presents the media matters.

Two judges on the Third US Circuit Court of Appeals have spent the past 17 years blocking a congressionally mandated modernization of antiquated broadcast-television regulations. The Supreme Court will hear an appeal on Jan 19, FCC v.