FCC members of both parties had words of caution about parts of the National Broadband Plan concerning media. Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said at Tuesday’s commission meeting that she has qualms about the reallotment of spectrum used by TV stations that the plan envisions. Commissioner Robert McDowell asked the commission to “tread gingerly” regarding set-top boxes. Blair Levin, who’s leaving the commission as the executive director of the broadband-plan work now that the document is complete, said his staff had taken concerns like Clyburn’s into account.

FCC members of both parties had words of caution about parts of the National Broadband Plan concerning media. Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said at Tuesday’s commission meeting that she has qualms about the reallotment of spectrum used by TV stations that the plan envisions. Commissioner Robert McDowell asked the commission to “tread gingerly” regarding set-top boxes. Blair Levin, who’s leaving the commission as the executive director of the broadband-plan work now that the document is complete, said his staff had taken concerns like Clyburn’s into account.

More consumers will buy in-car radios and mobile devices that can get HD Radio in the coming years, iBiquity Digital CEO Bob Struble said. Unit sales doubled in fiscal 2009, and 1.5 million in total have been shipped, he said Monday in an interview. Struble didn’t provide dollar figures about the privately held licensor of digital radio technology to broadcasters and consumer electronics manufacturers.

More consumers will buy in-car radios and mobile devices that can get HD Radio in the coming years, iBiquity Digital CEO Bob Struble said. Unit sales doubled in fiscal 2009, and 1.5 million in total have been shipped, he said Monday in an interview. Struble didn’t provide dollar figures about the privately held licensor of digital radio technology to broadcasters and consumer electronics manufacturers.

The Telecommunications Industry Association, APCO and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department filed comments at the FCC supporting rule changes for the 470-512 MHz band requested in a February petition by the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council. They said the changes would make the band more useful to public safety and should not cause interference to TV broadcasts given changes in technology. The NAB and Association for Maximum Service Television said any changes must apply only to public safety use of the spectrum.

Momentum to delay full-power broadcasters’ move to DTV picked up steam with support from President-elect Barack Obama. A Thursday letter from the co-head of his transition team to top lawmakers asked Congress to push back the Feb. 17 DTV switch, noting the NTIA’s digital converter box coupon program has run out of money. But the NTIA’s chief told us that Congress is coming up with legislation to let the agency send out more coupons. And FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, some legislators and industry groups said delay could cause consumer confusion.

Momentum to delay full-power broadcasters’ move to DTV picked up steam with support from President-elect Barack Obama. A Thursday letter from the co-head of his transition team to top lawmakers asked Congress to push back the Feb. 17 DTV switch, noting the NTIA’s digital converter box coupon program has run out of money. But the NTIA’s chief told us that Congress is coming up with legislation to let the agency send out more coupons. And FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, some legislators and industry groups said delay could cause consumer confusion.

Exempting movie studios from FCC selectable output control rules, as they seek, would “cripple lawful features on hundreds of millions” of HDTV sets, an electronics industry and consumer group coalition said late Wednesday. The Digital Freedom Campaign, which includes the CEA, Free Press and Public Knowledge, said a waiver sought by the Motion Picture Association of America would give “big studios” the power to require “pay-TV providers to shut off any and all HDTV connections not specifically approved by the MPAA.” That, the coalition said, would make the more than 20 million HDTV sets with analog-only inputs “as obsolete as 8- track tape players.” At a meeting Nov. 25 with FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, MPAA executives and former NAB chief Eddie Fritts offered what they described as the benefits of using selectable output controls, according to an ex parte filing. It said the CEA failed to provide “justification” for the FCC to deny the studios’ request, which is based on the studio’s “desire to strike the appropriate balance between consumer accessibility and content security.”

Any exemption for cable operators from FCC viewability rules will confuse viewers, NAB officials told an aide to FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein last week. Commissioners are poised to approve an order exempting small cable systems from a requirement to carry HD signals of broadcasters guaranteed cable carriage (CD Aug 14 p11). Viewers told by cable operators that every cable-connected set will work after the DTV transition expect to get all broadcast signals in digital after Feb. 17, an NAB ex parte said Wednesday. “This message simply will not be true for the millions of cable subscribers who will not have access to any must-carry stations in digital format if a blanket exemption is granted.” Writing Thursday in response to NAB, the American Cable Association said it doesn’t think the any blanket waiver to viewability rules is on the table, citing “numerous meetings at the Commission.” Instead, the group said, the agency is weighing a “reasonable exemption” from material degradation rules. There’s no reason for cable subscribers to be confused about whether they'll get digital broadcasts after the analog cutoff, it said. “Consumers will be no more puzzled receiving a broadcast signal in an analog format than they would be in purchasing a digital-to-analog converter box.”

Commissioners have held off negotiating with FCC Chairman Kevin Martin over his media ownership draft order because they want to see whether he will yield to congressional pressure to delay the Dec. 18 vote, agency sources said. They said the chairman hasn’t told colleagues of any plans to delay action, as Commissioners Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps sought Wednesday (CD Dec 13 p1). But commissioners didn’t want to start revising Martin’s draft order -- which would allow common ownership of a newspaper and radio or TV station in most cases in the top 20 markets -- until they're more certain a vote set for Tuesday won’t be postponed, the sources said.