MUMBAI: US media watchdog Federal Communications Commission (FCC) members Mignon Clyburn and Robert McDowell will be featured in the session "FCC Talk: Conversation with the Commissioners" on 17 April during the 2012 NAB Show in Las Vegas.

During the session, which will address regulatory issues facing broadcasters, NAB COO Chris Ornelas will lead a conversation with the two commissioners and Beasley Broadcast Group executive VP, CFO Caroline Beasley and Schurz Communications senior VP, broadcast and cable Marci Burdick.

Beasley is also Nab?s radio board of directors chairman and Burdick is Nab Television Board chair.

MUMBAI: The US Supreme Court will hear arguments about whether the FCC should still have a role in policing the country?s airwaves or whether its indecency regulations violate guarantees of free speech and due process.

With their free speech rights at issue, the major television networks are contesting the Federal Communications Commission‘s (FCC‘s) indecency policy that was upheld in a 1978 dispute over Carlin‘s Act. The networks‘ challenge involved more recent events.

The networks have argued successfully in lower courts that they exist side by side with cable channels that are beyond the FCC?s regulation. Therefore singling them out is not only nonsensical but unconstitutional.

Earlier Washington lawyer Carter G. Phillips, who represents Fox and other networks, told the court in a brief that stated, ?Today, broadcasting is neither uniquely pervasive nor uniquely accessible to children, yet broadcasters are still denied the same basic First Amendment freedoms as other media,?

Lawyers for Fox Television Stations have said that the Supreme Court should reverse its long-standing view that broadcast programming is subject to tougher rules than cable because of the scarcity of the airwaves and broadcast TV‘s pervasiveness in American life.

The networks are challenging sanctions for outbursts of those expletives and fleeting nudity before 10 pm when children are most likely to be watching. They say federal policy, which permits profanity in some situations, such as TV broadcast of the movie Saving Private Ryan, is unconstitutionally vague and violates free speech rights.

MUMBAI: US District Judge Richard Leon has approved Comcast Corp.?s acquisition of NBC Universal with conditions that a Federal Court will oversee the deal for two more years.

Leon ruled that the Justice Department and the combined company must report on arbitration actions initiated by online video distributors under the final judgment. The distributors feared they would lose access to NBC?s content because of the acquisition.

He ordered department lawyers to report back on how many online video distributors sought permission to arbitrate under the final judgment and how many were refused.

"Since neither the court nor the parties has a crystal ball to forecast" the effectiveness of the final judgment, the additional steps are necessary to protect the public interest," Leon has written.

Comcast?s proposed acquisition of NBC Universal won approval on 18 January from the US regulators under an agreement with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Justice Department.