Monty Tayloe

White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Legislative Affairs Director Narda Jones is widely expected to soon be named FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel’s chief of staff, and will be joined in Rosenworcel’s office by Facebook’s Priscilla Delgado Argeris, who previously was on Rosenworcel’s staff when the chairwoman was a commissioner. Numerous industry officials told us they see the new hires as part of Rosenworcel gearing up in anticipation of having a Democratic majority, not as indicators of a policy shift. FCC chiefs of staff help shape the chair’s policy but still reflect the agenda of their boss, said Blair Levin, who held that spot under former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt. Industry officials told us they expect the new hires to be announced soon, possibly at the start of April.

The complexities of the content distribution system, a lack of uniformity among different platforms and absence of regulatory requirements are among the reasons for inconsistency in which online content includes audio description, said panelists from streaming services and consumer groups at the FCC’s Video Programming Accessibility forum Monday.

A petition from a nonprofit representing U.S. Ukrainians urging the FCC to designate for hearing the licenses of the owners of a Washington, D.C., area station that airs Radio Sputnik is unlikely to succeed but could lead to a costly process, said broadcast and First Amendment attorneys in interviews Wednesday.

FCC disclosure requirements for broadcasters airing foreign sponsored content took effect Tuesday and several broadcast attorneys told us it isn’t totally clear how the requirements will be implemented. “In light of recent events, this effort -- which is all about transparency -- has taken on new importance,” said Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel in a release Tuesday, the effective date. “The FCC’s approach is not only unlawful but is woefully unnecessary to capturing only a handful of relevant agreements,” said an NAB spokesperson. NAB -- along with the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters and the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council -- challenged the rule in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and oral argument in the case is April 12.

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.”

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.