Work on FCC implementation of 2010 legislation to temper the volume of all broadcast and pay-TV ads (CD Aug 3 p8) is picking up steam. Career officials at the Media Bureau and other offices have spent significant time in recent weeks working on CALM Act rules. The staffers are in the final stages of drafting an order, expected to circulate this month, that would require TV stations and multichannel video programming distributors to help ensure that the sound level of all ads they carry don’t significantly exceed that of the programming they appear within.

The FCC is looking to revive some media ownership rules approved during Kevin Martin’s chairmanship, while ending a bar on one company holding radio and TV stations in the same market. A rulemaking notice that circulated Friday afternoon for the quadrennial review (CD Nov 7 p19) proposes to reinstate some cross-ownership rules approved 3-2 in 2007.

An unusual appeal of an FCC Media Bureau order gets a rare hearing Wednesday at the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Cablevision and cable programmer Madison Square Garden Holdings appealed last month a pair of bureau orders against the companies and in favor of the two biggest telcos, rather than waiting for the full commission to act. Even rarer, said media lawyers not part of the case, is the New York court’s agreement to hear oral argument on the request for the 2nd Circuit to stay the bureau’s rulings (CD Sept 23 p5). The rulings gave AT&T and Verizon access to HD feeds of two regional sports channels owned by MSG, which used to be part of Cablevision.

Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe stunt” at the 2004 Super Bowl still isn’t indecent, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia again ruled on CBS v. FCC. It was a 2-1 ruling touching on matters other than the First Amendment. Free speech still is expected to be front and center during oral argument at the Supreme Court later this year or early next on indecency cases involving two other broadcast networks, and Wednesday’s ruling isn’t expected to change that or affect the U.S.’s case against Disney’s ABC and News Corp’s Fox, industry lawyers said. The high court had sent back to the 3rd Circuit its earlier reversal of the $550,000 fine to CBS for showing for 9/16 of a second Jackson’s bare right breast (CD July 22/08 p1) because of the justices’ ruling on administrative law grounds on the Fox case.

Makers of consumer electronics are starting to join the mobile DTV push by terrestrial broadcasters, the head of Gannett’s group of 29 TV stations said. Broadcasters are targeting an array of consumer devices including cellphones and tablets to receive the signals of TV stations, Dave Lougee told a news conference Tuesday held on the formation of a TV group on spectrum: “We are gaining the commitments now from consumer electronics manufacturers and distributors to push this forward.” The broadcasting industry “will have some announcements in the very near future,” he told us: “We're not going to get ahead of our partners here."

The FCC proposed to “accommodate requests” for digital FM stations to increase their power level on one of their two sidebands. That would potentially let in-band on-channel radio broadcasters cover more of their analog service area with digital transmissions, without interfering with other stations. “A significant number of FM stations currently are precluded from taking advantage” of the entire tenfold digital power increase to -10 dB allowed by the commission last year (CD Feb 1/10 p7), a Media Bureau public notice said Tuesday: That’s “due to the presence of a nearby station on one but not both of the two” channels that are each one notch away on the dial.

CableLabs won’t retreat from ongoing work with other industries after the retirement in a year of CEO Paul Liao, who increased such collaboration in his two years there, cable executives said. They said the work with other cable bodies including the Canoe interactive-ad joint venture of six cable operators, the NCTA and Society of Cable Telecom Engineers has expanded as technology and standards play a big role in regulatory and legislative issues. Stepped-up work with groups like the CEA and Digital Living Network Alliance on issues like the transition to IPv6 addresses, Internet Protocol, home gateway devices and integration of cable systems with consumer electronics will continue as well, agreed cable executives we surveyed.

The FCC proposal to post online for the first time TV station public files and expand their required content to cover more types of joint broadcaster agreements would bolster research, communications professors told us Friday. The public files won’t initially automatically be searchable, under a further notice of proposed rulemaking that was approved at Thursday’s FCC meeting (CD Oct 28 p7). The data needs to be available in a standard format, so the electronic files can be searched, and should be machine readable so statistics can be imported into various data programs, the academics said.

The FCC proposed to expand what all TV stations must report to the public about their activities. A further rulemaking notice approved at Thursday’s meeting, over the partial concurrence of Commissioner Robert McDowell, would mandate online availability beyond requiring what’s currently in broadcasters’ paper public files (CD Oct 14 p7). The notice proposes that information on paid sponsorship of programming and details on stations’ shared services agreements (SSAs) with other broadcasters be reported for the first time to the FCC, Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake told us. He said the proposal is for such information to be given by stations to the agency, which will put it on the commission’s website.

Stations and cable networks are taking steps to further inform viewers that a three-minute-long, first-of-its-kind nationwide emergency alert exercise is only a test, FCC officials said Thursday. Chairman Julius Genachowski and Public Safety Bureau Chief Jamie Barnett acknowledged that there could be some viewer confusion during the Nov. 9 event. They said that’s because some cable encoder-decoders can’t add in additional test disclaimers during the exercise (CD Oct 13 p9). Pay-TV providers and broadcasters have been running public service announcements and otherwise informing viewers of the test.