Updated: Block That TV Reference

FCC commissioner Ajit Pai, well known for peppering his statements with cultural allusions, particularly song references, left the top to the pepper shaker off in his reaction to the FCC's release this week of its latest Video Competition report.

So, in the spirit of those Highlights magazines with the hidden word puzzles: How many TV show names can YOU find? (Editor's note: Commissioner Pai in a Tweet pointed out to the author that there was yet another reference in a footnote I had neglected include. It has now been included.)

"A quick note on why this report has been characterized by Arrested Development. The Communications Act requires us to 'annually report to Congress on the status of competition in the market for the delivery of video programming.' Unfortunately, this statutory mandate has collapsed like a House of Cards, as the cCommission failed to issue such a report in 2014.(2) Instead, the FCC has been Breaking Bad by focusing on other matters. We are not Mad Men; we are regulators, and it is Elementary that we are bound by the law. If we are to oversee the communications Empire for The Americans, we should provide timely marketplace snapshots as Congress asked us to do. It would be a Scandal if we continue to ignore this legal obligation. Hopefully, we will do so next time, well before The Wire, so we do not end up on Congress's Blacklist."

(2) Unless, of course, a 2014 version of the report has been buried in The X-Files.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.