Mergers, diversity of ownership, and multiple perspectives.
35 civil rights organizations (including Media Alliance) joined a sign-on letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, also the owner of the Washington Post newspaper, to desist from marketing facial recognition technology to the government.
Public records requests reveal that the company has developed and sold a prototype product called “Rekognition” to police departments in Florida and Oregon. Continue reading 35 Civil Rights Organizations Tell Amazon To Get Out Of The Facial Recognition Business
Update: And it’s official. Sinclair Tribune merger collapses with Tribune Media filing a lawsuit against Sinclair Broadcasting requesting compensation for Sinclair blowing the merger.
The very entertaining complaint can be read below. Continue reading Sinclair Tribune Merger Hits A Rock … And Drowns
originally printed in the AFT Advocate
(The Media Alliance, at media-alliance.org, is a Bay Area democratic communications advocate. Tracy fought a lonely war to save KCSM-TV between 2011 and 2013.)
On October 24, LocusPoint Networks, a subsidiary of the Blackstone Group, the largest hedge firm in the world, filed an injunction to block the sale of KCSM-TV to KRCB/North Bay Public Media. The filing in San Mateo Superior Court can be read here. No date has been set yet for the injunction request to be heard. Continue reading Spectrum Speculator LocusPoint Files Injunction To Stop Sale Of KCSM-TV
by John Eggerton Broadcasting and Cable
The FCC has told a federal court that it was reasonable to reinstate the UHF discount immediately while it considers adjusting the national audience reach cap, that it has the authority to adjust that cap, and that the discount and the cap have to be considered together because the UHF discount is meaningless except in relation to the cap.
That came in an opening brief filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in the challenge to its UHF decision filed by Free Press, Office of Communication of the United Church of Christ (UCC), Prometheus Radio Project, Media Mobilizing Project, Media Alliance, National Hispanic, Media Coalition, and Common Cause. Continue reading FCC Defends UHF Discount Decision in Court
BY
The United States Federal Communications Commission will vote to roll back media ownership regulations that prohibit organizations from owning a television station and newspaper in the same market and will make it easier to acquire media outlets.
The announcement of the vote was made by Chairman Ajit Pai while he and the other four commissioners were testifying at an oversight hearing before a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Communications and Technology. Continue reading IBT: Ajit Pai: FCC Voting To Remove Media Ownership Rules
On October 24, LocusPoint Networks, a subsidiary of the Blackstone Group, the largest hedge firm in the world, filed an injunction to block the sale of KCSM-TV to North Bay Public Media after KCSM owner, the San Mateo College Community District, was ejected from the FCC spectrum auction for failing to file a bid.
Locuspoint had been subsidizing the operations of the television station by paying the school district $900,000 a year since 2013 in exchange for 36.5% of the spectrum sale proceeds, which were estimated to be as much as $114 million dollars in total. Continue reading Blackstone Group Subsidiary Files To Block KCSM-TV Sale
Common Frequency, which performs engineering and regulatory assistance for educational radio stations across the Western US, says the pending decision to eliminate the main studio rule is an “egregious” oversight that disregards that only 16% of Puerto Rico’s 3.34 million residents have regained electricity, more than three weeks after Hurricane Maria ripped through the island.
Continue reading Radio Group Alleges FCC Main Studio Vote Threatens Public Safety
