Media and Broadcasting Policy

Robert Groden: The Plaza Man

In this week's Dallas Observer, we profile 30 of the metro area's most interesting characters, with new portraits of each from local photographer Mark Graham. See the entire Dallas Observer People Issue here On November 22, 1963, the day President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot in Dealey Plaza, R ... More >>

Fort Worth Senator Wendy Davis Wants to Use Strip Club Tax to Pay for Untested Rape Kits

Fort Worth Senator Wendy Davis announced this week that she'll be teaming up with the Texas Department of Public Safety to remind state law enforcement agencies, once again, that a new law requires them to report how many untested rape kits they have in evidence. At the same time, she announced the ... More >>

Suhm's "Very Disappointed" By Turn of Events as Occupy Dallas, City Head Back to Courthouse

Photo by Chris Howell​Below you'll find the original agreement the city of Dallas and Occupy Dallas entered into last month after that trip to the courthouse that was all fist-bumps and high-fives. Problem is, the agreement is affixed as an exhibit to even more legal docs Occupy Dallas's attorneys ... More >>

Mayor Awaits Report on Occupy Dallas; Group Vows It Won't Protest Omni, Vets Parade

Photo by Chris Howell​In the wake of two reports concerning the city's response to Saturday's arrest of eight Occupy Dallasites, some Friends of Unfair Park have asked: Is the city going to boot the protesters camping out behind Dallas City Hall, allowed by agreement following last month's trip to ... More >>

Fifth Circuit Judges Spend 100 Pages Debating Plano "Candy Cane" Case, First Amendment

​When last we checked in on the nearly 8-year-old (!) case involving those Plano ISD students (and their parents, more to the point) suing the district over those "Jesus is the Reason for the Season" pencils and candy canes they weren't allowed to distribute during winter-break parties, one of the ... More >>

One Way the NBC-Comcast Merger Could Change the Way KXAS-Channel 5 Makes News

KNUS99.comUsed to be a time when Chip Moody and Harold Taft were all the "hyperlocal" you needed.​Everything I've learned about the more-n-likely-to-happen Kabletown ... pardon, Comcast-NBC merger I've learned from 30 Rock. Well, OK, not everything: This morning's New York Times alters our attenti ... More >>

Six Months After Groden's Arrest in Dealey Plaza, Muni Judge Rules: Case Dismissed!

Robert Groden​Back in June we broke the news that Robert Groden, perhaps the most familiar (and certainly the most respected) of all the Dealey Plaza vendors peddling JFK assassination materials, had been arrested and detained by Dallas Police officers on the clean-up crackdown. Groden filed a fed ... More >>

DOJ, FCC Settle With HP (For $16.25 Mil!) Over E-Rate Fraud In Dallas, Houston ISDs

Ruben Bohuchot​Back in June 2009, you may recall, the Dallas Independent School District and the U.S. Department of Justice settled up over the misuse of funds provided to the district for the feds' E-Rate program, which was created in 1996 to give "affordable access to telecommunications services ... More >>

FCC Tells FOX to Hand Over Indecency Complaints. Instead, It Sends 'Em to KDFW.

​Variety's reporting that the Federal Communications Commission is fining FOX $25,000 over the January 3 episode of American Dad titled "Horse Chores," in which -- as the trade's Ted Johnson puts it -- there's a scene "in which two characters engage in ribald dialogue, followed by a scene in which ... More >>

It's Official: KERA's All-Music Station, KXT, Will Make Noise Starting November 9

​At last: KERA just sent word that its announced-in-June all-music radio station, now known as KKXT-FM (91.7), will officially makes its bow November 9 at 7 a.m. Also announced this morning were the nationally syndicated programs KXT, as it'll be known, will air: Acoustic Café, American Routes, M ... More >>

"The Process": Wanna Know When KERA's Debuting That New Music Station? Stay Tuned.

KNUS99.com​I was tracking down some information on the Federal Communications Commission's Web site regarding an unrelated matter, then figured while I was there I'd check in to see how the KVTT-to-KERA transfer was going. Because every few days, someone will ask me when KERA's going to launch its ... More >>

KTVT's Got Itself a New UHF Signal

​Last week came word that KTVT-Channel 11 had gone to the Federal Communications Commission to get a new frequency following the digital transition. And why was such an emergency petition necessary? Because, according to KTVT docs on file with the FCC, the local CBS affiliate "has received thousan ... More >>

Since Going All-Digital, KTVT-Channel 11 Has Lost "Large Numbers of Over-the-Air Viewers"

www.mcsittel.comSo reports the great Ed Bark, who's peeked at a copy of the CBS affiliate's petition to the Federal Communications Commission in which KTVT's asking for a new frequency pronto. Uncle Barky's got the details, but the short version is: Channel 11 says the digital transition on June 12 ... More >>

DOJ to Dallas ISD: Pay Up. And Say Adios to $150 Million in Federal Funding Requests.

This just in from the U.S. Department of Justice's press department: The government and the Dallas Independent School District have settled their dispute involving the misuse of funds provided to the district for the so-called E-Rate program, created in 1996 to give "affordable access to telecommuni ... More >>

Mark Cuban Will Be on the Interwebs Today, Courtesy the FCC

Shawn Williams Is, As Always, Good For Listening on National Public Radio

Accused of Payola (Again), Clear Channel Waves Bye-Bye to Waiver Clause

Listen Up: Clear Channel's Accused of Payola. Again.

Fake News is a Real Pain

And Now, The Fake News

Who Hoak?

One More Reason Why Houston Sucks

Play Nice or Else

Plus: Unripe Banana Case

Thanks for the Mammary

Plano group wants FCC to get a handle on breasts

Tin Giant

Let Belo buy every station in the country--makes my job easier

What's Left of the Dial

One nonprofit helped save radio. Sort of. For now.

Public Disinterest

So is media consolidation a bad thing?

A Sad Salvation

At SXSW, you couldn't hear the bad news over all that music

Net Loss

The government killed TV, and Hollywood's begging it to revive the corpse

Radio-Free Garland

An unlikely suburban airwave pirate lands in the FCC's crosshairs

Belo the belt

When Belo got into the cable news business, it set off a war with Time Warner that has both companies fighting over Texas

Taking Howard Stern seriously

The last interview you'll ever need to read with radio's greatest, loudest talker--and, just maybe, Hollywood's newest movie star

Lost children

Television has replaced the family as the biggest influence in some kids' lives

The mouse that roared

How telecommunications deregulation will help Disney--and other media giants--rule the world