Pai Promotes First-Year 'Have Done' List

FCC chairman Ajit Pai has released a summary of his first year in the job, billing it in a slick digital handout as "A Year of Action and Accomplishment." Jan. 24 was the one-year anniversary of his first full day in office.

The seven-page roll call of the to do list the chairman can check off is divided into five categories, with plenty of action items under all of them and action verbs--"voted," "ended," "adopted," "approved"--to describe the activity. The categories are Bridging the Digital Divide, Promoting Investment and Innovation, Protecting consumers and Enhancing Public Safety, Transparency and Process Reforms, and Cutting and Modernizing Outdated Regulations.



Not surprisingly given how the network neutrality regulation rollback was billed, the first item under "Promoting Investment and Innovation" was the vote to "restore the longstanding, bipartisan light-touch regulatory framework that fostered rapid Internet growth, openness, and freedom for nearly 20 years." The vote to launch the ATSC 3.0 next gen broadcast transmission standard also got a shout-out in the section.

For another example, under "Transparency and Process Reforms," is the entry "Getting Things Done," and the explanation: "In the first 12 meetings under chairman Pai’s leadership, the FCC has adopted 78 agenda items in open meetings, more than double the number adopted by the Commission during the prior chairman’s first year."

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.