By Josh Smith and Juliana Gruenwald, National Journal
Federal Communications Commission head Julius Genachowski will seek an administrative hearing on AT&T Inc.’s proposed $39 billion deal to acquire T-Mobile USA, two people close to the review process confirmed on Tuesday.
The Wall Street Journal first reported that the FCC would examine the merger, [...]

John Eggerton, Multichannel News
Media Access Project and Public Knowledge have joined the Sports Fan Coalition in petitioning the Federal Communications Commission to lift its sports blackout rule.
“We promote access to the media and the rule stifles access,” said MAP’s Andrew Schwartzman.
The rule prevents cable or satellite providers from carrying an NFL game [...]

Appeals to TV station’s public interest obligation
Katy Bachman, AdWeek
Opening up a new front in the fight to stop AT&T’s $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile, public interest law firm Media Access Project is going after AT&T’s TV ad promoting the merger.
In a letter to WUSA, Gannett’s CBS affiliate, one of the Washington, D.C., stations airing the [...]

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable
Media Access Project, which opposes the merger of AT&T and T-Mobile, has asked WUSA Washington to stop airing AT&T ads that make job and investment claims MAP strongly disputes.
That came in a letter to WUSA Monday, a copy of which was supplied to B&C/Multi.
“AT&T’s assertion in the spot that the [...]

John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable
TV and music content creators and their broadcast distributors are on the same page when it comes to opposing the FCC’s indecency enforcement regime, but differ on how the Supreme Court should approach its review of those regs.
That was clear in a Media Access Project (MAP) brief filed Thursday with [...]

Would require FCC to justify regulations according to costs and benefits, survey the state of the marketplace before initiating any new rulemakings
By: John Eggerton — Broadcasting & Cable
As expected, a pair of Republican legislators introduced an FCC process reform bill Wednesday that would require the FCC to justify regulations acording to costs [...]

‘Wardrobe malfunction’ penalty voided as Supreme Court case looms
By Ted Johnson, Variety

A federal appellate court has once again thrown out the FCC’s $550,000 in fines against CBS for the infamous Janet Jackson “wardrobe malfunction” incident at the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show.The Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, in a 2-1 [...]

by Paul Blumenthal, Huffington Post
WASHINGTON — Everyone is used to seeing a flood of political advertising, whether they are vicious attack ads or saccharine puff pieces, in the months before an election. Soon, the public may get a huge amount of information about the source and cost of all of those [...]

By KIRK VICTOR, The Fiscal Times
October 24, 2011

The Justice Department’s challenge to AT&T’s proposed merger with T-Mobile at first blush looked like a gutsy show of force, one that suggested a surge in Obama administration antitrust activism after a modest start. Justice officials portrayed the merger of the second and fourth largest U.S. wireless [...]

The Hill, Brenden Sasso
The aura of inevitability that once surrounded the merger of AT&T and T-Mobile is long gone.
With the Justice Department suing to stop AT&T’s proposed purchase of T-Mobile, and the Federal Communications Commission taking a hard look at it, the prospects for the deal appear to be dimming by the [...]