Hopes that the changes coming to the Environmental Protection Agency set-top box energy efficiency specifications account for next-generation consumer electronics products were expressed in recent interviews with CE and multichannel video programming distributor executives. MVPDs and device makers are in the initial stages of coordinated efforts to cut home device power use to mostly deploy starting next year, among set-tops with DVRs, those with hard drives that stop spinning after four hours of inactivity. Such light-sleep boxes are one way 11 top cable operators, DBS providers and telco-TV companies and four of their suppliers, all of which earlier this month signed a voluntary agreement (VA), plan to cut the amount of electricity used by dormant set-tops (CD Dec 7 p5). Efficiency advocates say the agreement (http://xrl.us/bn46yj) lacks firm commitments to buy future-generation set-tops that can almost completely shut down and yet power up quickly.

Multichannel video programming distributors remain divided on whether the FCC should adopt a standard of rebuttable presumptions against withholding from other MVPDs channels that are affiliated with cable operators, comments on a rulemaking show. NCTA and programmers and operators that own channels opposed the presumptions that program access rules are violated by exclusive contracts for cable-affiliated regional sports networks (RSN) and national sports networks. Vertically-integrated operator/programmers also opposed the notion that once a channel affiliated with an operator is found to have one unfair exclusive contact, it can’t get more. The presumptions would be rebuttable by defendants.

A company whose sole assets are two Western U.S. TV stations can move them without an auction to the top and No. 4 U.S. markets, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled Friday. The D.C. Circuit reversed the FCC’s denial of the one-of-a-kind cross-country DTV community of license change (CD June 17/09 p6). A three-judge panel ruled the agency’s reading of a statute added to the Communications Act in a tax bill in 1982, from legislation by a New Jersey senator meant to allocate a commercial station to his state, was wrong. Judges Merrick Garland, Brett Kavanaugh and David Tatel also didn’t like the interpretation of Section 331(a) by PMCM, owner of KVNV Ely, Nev., in U.S. market No. 33 and KJWY Jackson, Wyo., in No. 162. So they interpreted the section in a way different from either litigant in PMCM v. FCC.

FCC staff working toward a redrafted quadrennial media ownership order to end the current review early next year are considering adding provisions that target some deregulation to aid diversity beyond the current draft, agency, industry and nonprofit officials said. They said career staffers appear to be giving attention to including provisions that industry and nonprofit backers say would help diversity without targeting only minorities. Targeting women and minorities can’t be done until research on barriers to entry is completed (CD Nov 19 p1). If staff finds provisions that are non-controversial inside and outside the agency, those adds could go in the new order to end the review due in 2010 under the Telecom Act, said officials observing the redrafting.

Makers of consumer electronics and sellers of pay TV expanded a multi-year power reduction effort begun a year ago (CD Nov 21 p6) to include the country’s DBS providers and three largest telcos. Those five companies agreed to join the existing six top U.S. cable operators that had been deploying set-top boxes capable of partly shutting down when not in use. The 11 multichannel video programming distributors now will work with four CE companies on such light-sleep devices.

The delay of a media ownership deregulation vote following FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn’s concerns about lack of action on diversity may lead to a slightly rejiggered order early next year addressing some minority issues, officials inside and outside the agency predicted. Clyburn apparently played a key role in getting Chairman Julius Genachowski to hold off on a decision until at least Jan. 4. That’s when replies are due on a public notice the Media Bureau issued Tuesday night for feedback on minority and female ownership of radio and TV stations (http://xrl.us/bn4tzh). Some industry officials who reviewed the notice and accompanying blog post (http://xrl.us/bn4tzm) by bureau Chief Bill Lake, titled “Going the Extra Mile for Transparency,” said they came off as defensive. They said that’s unusual especially for official staff decisions like a public notice.

Hurdles to updating the Telecom Act include an increase in partisanship in Congress since the 1996 legislation passed on a bipartisan basis, said industry officials aligned with minority broadcasters Friday. Those and other speakers at a Rainbow/Push Coalition telecom conference who represented a broader array of companies said a “do-no-harm” approach is needed, without statutory micromanagement of what the FCC and other agencies can do. The commission is likely to again recommend Congress reinstate tax certificates for communications assets sold to firms of a type that could include those owned by minorities when it releases a triennial report on eliminating market-entry barriers, said an agency staffer working on the document due to Congress Dec. 31.

FCC staff delayed by a year and a half the date when cable operators must begin including Internet Protocol outputs on interactive HD set-top boxes they deploy. A Media Bureau order Wednesday partly granted TiVo’s waiver request, as expected (CD Nov 16 p4). The order came three days before an interoperability deadline that makers of consumer electronics, cable operators large and small and Verizon backed extending. The new deadline is June 2, 2014, for all but small operators, which get an additional three months. That was half the extra time the American Cable Association sought, though the ACA said it was happy to get the accommodation.

Widespread, successful ad-brokerage agreements among separately owned TV stations in the same market are leading some executives to question why the FCC wants to make attributable to the broadcaster controlling the joint sales agreements such JSAs. There are more than 100 stations in such deals, where one often lower-rated and smaller revenue outlet lets a bigger rival sell ads and they share office space and other clerical functions, our survey of brokers, lawyers and executives found. They said JSAs have become more prevalent in recent years, particularly among stations in small and mid-size markets.

The transfer of licenses to an earlier corporate incarnation of Tribune and waivers of cross-ownership rules so the company could hold onto radio and TV stations in markets where it owned daily newspapers would remain in place under a draft order, FCC officials said. They said a Media Bureau order that circulated Nov. 14 (http://xrl.us/bmxdnu) denied the substance of petitions for reconsideration of a 2007 commission decision that paved the way for Sam Zell to take the company private. The part of the 3-2 order (CD Dec 3/07 p6) the current item reverses would give a church group opposed to cross-ownership waivers standing to challenge applications to transfer control to Zell, agency officials told us last week.