Michelle Donelan, UK Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, has written to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak recommending the Government drops its plans to privatise commercial public service broadcaster Channel 4. Donelan says she has concluded that pursuing a sale at this point is not the right decision and there are better ways […]
Having failed to attract sufficient votes to confirm her October 2021 nomination as an FCC Commissioner, US President Biden has renominated Gigi Sohn to fill the vacant fifth commissioner seat. The new appointment will be for a five year term retroactively starting on July 1st, 2021, filling the seat previously held by former FCC Chairman […]
Russia says the banning by regulators of broadcasting Russian channels by the likes of Eutelsat is a restriction on the freedom of speech. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, speaking on December 29th, said that the West’s crackdown on Russian media was not only “a flagrant violation” of freedom of speech, but was also “discriminatory […]
A slew of legal documents were submitted to Intelsat’s Chapter 11 post-bankruptcy reorganisation on December 28th by lawyers for Intelsat. In essence, the filings represent the Final Report on Intelsat’s post-bankruptcy proceedings and an application to close certain outstanding matters. One particular argument is over $12 million of expense and cost claims (“Bill of Costs”) […]
Eutelsat has issued a statement confirming that, on December 21st, it had “ended all involvement in the broadcasting of three [Russian] channels Rossiya One, Pervyi Kanal and NTV, within the prescribed 7-day compliance period.” “Pursuant to the Council of the European Union (EU) Regulation 2022/2474 of 16 December 2022, these three channels as well as […]
The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has launched a proceeding to streamline its review processes for satellite applications. As the space economy booms, the agency will look further to update its rules and processes to ensure that its critical review responsibilities are met as efficiently and effectively as possible. In recent years, the Commission says […]
Telefónica is again under fire for breaking competition rules. CNMC, the Spanish regulator, has started legal proceedings against the company for obliging its subscribers to agree to a contract of up to 36 months under the Fusion+ smartphone promotion. That clause is against the legal conditions approved by the CNMC to authorise Telefónica’s acquisition of […]
The European Commission (EC) has opened an in-depth investigation to assess, under the EU Merger Regulation, the proposed acquisition by semiconductor and infrastructure software solutions specialist Broadcom of enterprise software provider VMWare. The EC is particularly concerned that the transaction would allow Broadcom to restrict competition in the market for certain hardware components which interoperate […]
The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) has decided not to authorise proposed regional mobile network arrangements between Telstra Corporation and TPG Telecom. Under the statutory test, the ACCC must not grant authorisation unless it is satisfied the proposed arrangements would not be likely to substantially lessen competition, or that the likely public benefits from […]
Berlusconi family-controlled MediaForEurope (MFE) is looking to take majority control of German commercial broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1. MFE filed its formal notification at Austria’s Federal Competition Authority (Bundeswettbewerbsbehörde) on December 13th. The filing talks about the “acquisition of de facto sole control” of the German media business. Investment bank Exane/BNPP suggests this could be a difficult move […]