Latest in Public Policy

David Cohen, a key adviser to Comcast CEO Brian Roberts and a notable fundraiser for Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden, has announced his plan to step down from his operational role at the company. He will end his operational responsibilities as of January 1, 2020, transitioning from Senior EVP to Senior…

UPDATED with closing stock prices. The Department of Justice revelation Monday of its plan to roll back decades-old regulations governing studios and movie theaters pushed beleaguered exhibition stocks higher Tuesday as investors saw the upside of the move. On Wall Street, shares in AMC Entertainment, the No. 1…

At first blush, I thought that John Ford moment in Roland Emmerich's Midway was surely over-the-top, a parody, like the semi-silly Bruce Lee bit in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. But why interrupt a deadly serious war film with what seemed to be a comic walk-on by a famous movie director, shouting…

The Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday issued its formal approval of the merger of T-Mobile and Sprint, a proposed $26 billion tie-up that would unite the No. 3 and No. 4 U.S. telecom providers. The party-line vote was held last month but officially revealed today. The news comes after the U.S Department of…

COMMENTARY: The grid is wobbly. The hills are on fire. Some homeless camps in the Valley have been almost as crowded as CityWalk. If ever we needed the annual migration of awards-season out-of-towners, it is now. The Descent of the Visitors—most of them from New York—is my favorite part of the Oscar cycle. Like…

Viacom and CBS have appointed Doretha “DeDe” Lea as EVP Global Public Policy and Government Relations of ViacomCBS, a position that will become effective when the pending merger of the companies is closed. As the top lobbyist for the soon-to-be-merged company, Lea will report to CEO Bob Bakish. The $30 billion…

Measurement firm ComScore has reached an agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission to settle a fraud complaint the company blames on former CEO Serge Matta. The SEC charged the company with “engaging in a fraudulent scheme to overstate revenue by approximately $50 million and making false and misleading…

The Republican-led FCC’s efforts to relax a series of restrictions on ownership of TV stations has been sidelined by a federal appeals court. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday ruled 2-1 that the FCC, in making the changes over the past three years, did not adequately consider the effect that the revised…

The naked breasts, erotic dancers and drugs being consumed in the film Hustlers have raised the eyebrows of the Malaysian Film Censorship Board, which has ruled that the scenes made the film “not suitable for public screening.” Malaysian distributor Square Box Pictures confirmed the ban on Instagram.  The film about…

2ND UPDATE, 5:06 PM: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s meetings in Washington on Thursday included a visit with President Donald Trump, who has claimed the social media platform has been biased toward Democrats. But in a message on Twitter, Trump posted a picture of him meeting with Zuckerberg in the Oval Office and…

The Federal Communications Commission has given the OK to Nexstar Media Group to acquire Tribune Media, a little more than a year after blocking Sinclair Broadcast Group from buying Tribune. FCC review was the final hurdle the transaction needed to clear. The Department of Justice gave its blessing in July. Nexstar is…

UPDATED with more details: Google will pay $170 million to settle claims by the Federal Trade Commission anda New York Attorney General Letitia James that YouTube illegally collected personal information from children without their parent's consent. The record fine, which had been anticipated after news reports that…