Alerting companies, consumer groups and industry trade groups broadly support the FCC’s proposed rule changes to make emergency alert messages more accessible but are concerned about the timeline for implementation, possible alerting delays, and how the changes might affect alerts that use the legacy EAS system rather than the internet-based common alerting protocol, said comments posted by Friday’s deadline in docket 15-94. “The deaf and hard of hearing community faces significant problems receiving complete and timely communications warning of emergencies,” said a joint filing from user groups including the Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and the National Association of the Deaf.
The FCC is considering creating a voluntary “designated hitter” plan to provide multilingual emergency information during disasters, said broadcast and emergency alerting officials. Under such plans long touted by the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council, English-language stations in a market would use their broadcast to host foreign language emergency information translated by local foreign language stations if those stations have been knocked off the air. Broadcasters argued that such proposals are impractical and unlikely to work, but in an ex parte letter filed Thursday MMTC said the system is the only choice. “After almost two decades of consideration, no one has offered a better alternative,” said MMTC President Robert Branson.
News Media Alliance (NMA) President David Chavern is “optimistic” about the future of the proposed Journalism Competition Protection Act and favors changing Communications Decency Act Section 230 to reduce liability protections for tech companies, he told the Media Institute at the group’s virtual luncheon Wednesday. “We’re responsible for the decisions we make; the platforms are responsible for the decision they made,” Chavern said.
Communications industry companies, law firms and government agencies are looking at returning to the office, with the COVID-19 omicron variant on the wane. The shift coincides with Washington, D.C., dropping its mask mandate and the White House urging companies and agencies to return to work. “COVID-19 no longer needs to dictate how we work,” said a White House COVID-19 Preparedness Plan released Wednesday.
Media companies and organizations, including Google, DirecTV and the NAB, are taking action against Russian-sponsored content in reaction to the invasion of Ukraine. “The First Amendment protects freedom of speech; however, it does not prevent private actors from exercising sound, moral judgment,” said NAB CEO Curtis LeGeyt in a statement Tuesday, asking all broadcasters to cease airing “state-sponsored programming with ties to the Russian government or its agents.”
Roughly 20,000 attendees and 700 exhibitors have signed up to take part in the April 23-27 NAB Show in Las Vegas, said NAB Managing Director-Global Connections and Events Chris Brown on an episode of NAB’s podcast posted Monday. Brown said he’s projecting 60,000 to 70,000 attendees and hoping for 1,000 exhibitors. Brown said the registered exhibitors include Adobe, AWS and Canon. The 2021 show was canceled after many of those exhibitors announced they weren’t attending. More than a fifth of the registered attendees are from outside the U.S., Brown said. The show is still planned to require participants to be vaccinated, but that could shift “if things continue to improve,” Brown said. The show will confirm vaccination status via an app, he said. Masks will be recommended but won’t be required after Nevada dropped mask mandates, he said. The show will still include additional cleaning protocols, and COVID-19 tests will be sold at the Las Vegas Convention Center, NAB said. Brown said the LVCC has hosted several major shows successfully in 2022, and flights into Las Vegas are becoming increasingly available.
High inflation would exacerbate public TV funding woes, but 2022 was also a record year of investment in the service, said America’s Public Television Stations CEO Patrick Butler in his opening address at the 2022 virtual Public Media Summit Monday. Many “consequential elections” in 2022 may “significantly alter the political environment” in which PBS funding is decided, Butler said. “We lost $100 million in purchasing power in a decade of flat funding,” he said.
FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel charged the Communications Equity and Diversity Council with drafting model policies for localities to adopt to prevent discrimination in the implementation of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, she announced at the group’s second meeting Wednesday. The IIJA directs the agency to draft such policies, and the council will work “as an independent partner” with the FCC to do so, Rosenworcel said. The chairwoman's “urgent request” means the group will have to issue recommendations by July, said Dominique Harrison, chair of the CEDC’s Digital Empowerment and Inclusion Working Group. “We can’t afford to wait for the end of our charter to do this work,” said CEDC Chair Heather Gate.
A financing arrangement between Standard General and Cox Media Group-owner Apollo Global Capital could lead to FCC scrutiny of Standard’s proposed $8.6 billion purchase of Tegna, said media brokers and industry analysts Tuesday. The deal would leave Apollo with a nonvoting interest in Standard. If regulators view Apollo’s interest as attributable, they could treat the transaction as a combination of Cox’s, Standard’s and Tegna’s stations, which would likely violate FCC ownership rules. “It’s not clear how that’s going to be accounted for at the FCC and the DOJ,” said S&P Kagan analyst Justin Nielson.
A U.S. Forest Service proposal to charge communications facilities on National Forest System (NFS) lands an annual administrative fee could be an existential threat to smaller broadcasters but is seen by wireless groups as a route to faster approvals, according to interviews. The deadline for comments is Tuesday, but docket 2021-27681 already listed 591 submissions Friday. “I get that they have to cover the administrative costs of what they do, but some of these stations have been there for 30 years,” said National Translator Association President Jack Mills.