By Brendan Sasso, The Hill
With Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) blocking President Obama’s two nominees to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the five-member board is set to begin the new year with the bare minimum of members needed to take official action.
The FCC has been operating with four commissioners since Meredith Attwell [...]

By Katy Bachman, Adweek
Proposal codifies newspaper-TV combos held by Tribune and News Corp.
Once again, the Federal Communications Commission decided to move forward a major regulatory rule just before holidays. Last year at this time, Chairman Julius Genachowski annoyed GOP lawmakers and even some of his fellow commissioners with the vote to pass [...]

RoadMAP and the FCC have something in common: they both want to relax over the holidays.  In RoadMAP’s case, it means that you won’t be receiving any updates until January 3.  Happy Holidays.
Speaking of Happy Holidays, please consider a donation to MAP.  In case you missed it,
here is a year-end message from MAP’s [...]

by John Eggerton,Broadcasting & Cable
Call it deja vu of Martin FCC and ‘loophole-ridden scheme.’ But FCC does get props for looking into SSA’s

Reaction was swift to the FCC’s announcement it had voted the media ownership item Thursday, in part because those responses had been teed up for hours, with the FCC initially trying [...]

December 22, 2011
For Immediate Release
Contact: Andrew Jay Schwartzman
202.454.5681
andys@mediaaccess.org

FCC Broadcast Ownership Proposal Is “Loophole-Ridden Scheme”

The Federal Communications Commission today released a proposal that would relax rules prohibiting ownership of TV stations and newspapers in the same community.  Andrew Jay Schwartzman, Senior Vice President of the Media Access Project issued the following [...]

The Atlantic’s tech page is one of the best on the Internet.  Here, Senior Editor Alexis Madrigal offers a slide show of predictions for the next year.
Looking Ahead at Tech In 2012
The last year has been packed with tech stories: Competition among the tech giants, continuing fallout from WikiLeaks, the explosion [...]

By Joan Engebretson, Connected Planet
A coalition promoting the need for special access reform led by competitive local exchange carrier association Comptel is getting some serious attention from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. The court this week issued an order asking for additional materials from the coalition, from the FCC and [...]

Here is an interesting overview on media industry profitability.  The problem for the investment community is that it has long feasted on unreasonably high profits.  The Internet has changed the outlook for all media platforms, but Wall Street hasn’t yet adjusted to the fact that this sector is merely more profitable [...]

Katie Bachman, Adweek
Now that the Obama Administration has successfully shut down the AT&T-T-Mobile merger, it is setting its sights on Verizon Wireless’ recent spectrum and joint venture deals with cable companies. According to a Bloomberg report, the Department of Justice is reportedly looking at whether the joint venture arrangement Verizon [...]

Brendan Sasso, The Hill
AT&T abandoned its $39 billion bid to buy T-Mobile on Monday, acknowledging that it couldn’t overcome opposition from the Obama administration.
Both the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had moved to block the deal, arguing the merger of the second and fourth largest wireless carriers would [...]