The National Association of Broadcasters is challenging the constitutionality of new FCC rules requiring local TV stations to put information about political advertising online, it said on Tuesday.

The new rules are “arbitrary, capricious, in excess of the commission’s statutory authority, inconsistent with the First Amendment, and otherwise not in accordance with the law,” the NAB said in a May 21 petition at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

In the documents the NAB filed with the court, the association did not spell out in detail its specific problems with the regulations adopted by the FCC April 27.

But NAB officials have blasted the regulations publicly for only...

Sarah Jessica Parker is taking a cue from George Clooney and opening her own home to President Obama and his supporters for a fund-raiser on June 14.  

The event, co-hosted by the president and First Lady Michelle Obama, will take place on June 14 at the “Sex and the City” star’s townhouse in Manhattan. And like Clooney’s Hollywood extravaganza, which raised a staggering $15 million for the president’s second run on the White House, Parker’s party in New York will include a couple civilians in the mix.

The always proper Parker announced the donation-based contest via email Friday, taking a crack at class politics while she was at it. “As a woman...

Netflix is turning up the heat on Comcast, Time Warner and AT&T over data caps that the cable companies place on unaffiliated streaming-video companies.

In its latest attempt to end what it considers discrimination on the parts of the three cable companies, the rental and streaming giant is "shopping questions related to data caps to the Senate Commerce Committee members in anticipation of tomorrow's oversight hearing with all five FCC commissioners," a person close to the situation told TheWrap on Tuesday.

Comcast, AT&T and TWC promote their own services by exempting them from the monthly broadband usage caps they apply to Netflix and other unaffiliated companies. Companies that exceed the usage caps -- which Comcast, for example, has set at 250 gigabytes a month -- can have their services cut off, slowed down or assessed with additional charges...

A joint research venture proposed by Verizon and the nation’s largest cable TV companies presents a “template for a cartel” and should be required to make more of its plans public, watchdog group Public Knowledge said on Wednesday.

The members of the partnership, which include Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Bright House and Cox Communications, say the venture would develop new technologies for cable, better integrate wired and wireless products and services and be pro-competitive.

The companies announced the joint venture plan back in December; since then, the Federal Communications Commission and Department of Justice have been...