The FCC stood by media ownership deregulation, excusing in five instances licensees from restrictions on owning a daily newspaper and radio or TV station in the same market and allowing such cross-ownership in large cities approved on a party-line vote in December 2007 during Chairman Kevin Martin’s tenure. That was spelled out in a filing Wednesday afternoon to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, which is considering industry challenges seeking further deregulation and media consolidation opponents’ requests for stricter rules. Commissioner Michael Copps, who along with then-Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein voted against the congressionally mandated quadrennial review report, slammed the filing, which Chairman Julius Genachowski said he supports because the FCC acted within its discretion.

Draft FCC rulemakings propose changing how DBS providers must deal with carriage of TV stations to subscribers who live in a different market and in some cases wouldn’t be able to watch the station over-the-air by antenna, agency officials said. They said the two drafts respond to this year’s Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act (STELA) and are expected to be approved by FCC members soon, perhaps this week, and then publicly released for comment. Quick turnaround of the items which circulated Friday is likely because the agency must take final action on distant signal carriage and DBS subscriber signal measurement, subjects of the pending items, by Nov. 23 under STELA, agency officials said.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski continues to be alarmed by the gap in home broadband access between whites and minorities and said the agency is taking several steps to address that issue and enhance opportunities for people of color and small businesses seeking to enter media and telecom. With fast Internet service at home for 59 percent of African-Americans, 49 percent of Hispanics and probably around 10 percent for Native Americans, “you already know the numbers,” he told a Minority Media and Telecommunications Council conference Tuesday. “The digital divide is seriously troubling. More troubling now than in the past, because the costs of digital exclusion are rising.”

Congress has been laggardly in not bringing back tax certificates that once were used by companies selling media assets to minorities, FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell said Monday. “I do not understand why the 111th Congress has not passed legislation to reinstate” a revamped and improved certificate, he told a Minority Media and Telecommunications Council (MMTC) conference. “This seems like a no-brainer.” McDowell and colleagues Meredith Baker and Mignon Baker agreed on the panel that access to capital is the biggest hurdle faced by minorities desiring to enter the media business.

The FCC probably will appeal to the Supreme Court its legal defeat over a policy of censuring broadcasters for airing one unintentional curse word during a show (CD July 14 p1), veteran industry lawyers and executives predicted. Many of them, and others we surveyed, also think the commission will at around the same time re-examine through a rulemaking what’s called the fleeting expletives policy. Career staffers continue to sort through filings against stations airing Fox programming over a Jan. 3 episode of American Dad, matching viewers’ complaints with the broadcasters in their markets, commission and industry officials said.

Portable devices that receive mobile DTV broadcasts were exempted from FCC rules that they contain tuners capable of getting regular analog and digital broadcasts, in a Media Bureau decision Thursday afternoon. Cellphones, PDAs, laptops, dongles and devices used in autos can exclude analog and/or ATSC A/53 digital TV signal reception if they can get mobile broadcasts using A/153. The products must be designed to be used “in motion” and give notice to consumers on the package and in certain cases at point of sale about which types of signals can’t be received.

Cablevision faces a second complaint under revised program-access rules that recently took effect. AT&T Wednesday made good on its threat last month to make an amended complaint under the new rules if the cable operator and Madison Square Garden, spun off from Cablevision, wouldn’t let the telco carry in HD two New York-area regional sports networks (RSNs) in Connecticut. Verizon filed a similar amended complaint in June, and commission officials predicted renewed attention by staffers over the withholding from rivals of channels affiliated with cable operators (CD June 29 p6).

A wide range of pay-TV companies panned the idea of FCC standards for what the agency calls gateway devices to let all subscribers connect consumer electronics devices bought at retail to multichannel video program distributors (MVPD). Cable, satellite and telco filings posted by the FCC Wednesday in docket 97-80 sought flexibility in their services connecting to what are also called AllVid user interfaces. Google, Intel and major CE companies including Sony backed the commission proposal for an AllVid device, which also could get online content.

Online video competition is among the media market threats from Comcast’s planned purchase of control of NBC Universal, many speakers said at a Chicago FCC informational hearing on the deal that continued into Tuesday night. The combined companies have ample incentive to maintain exclusivity over their broadcast and cable programming, to the detriment of rival pay-TV companies, websites and other companies, some speakers said.

Loosening rules barring common ownership of a radio or TV broadcaster and a daily newspaper in any city outside the top 20, easing limits on owning two TV stations in a market and lifting caps on radio station ownership in a community were sought at the FCC by 29 companies. In comments on the 2010 review of media ownership rules posted Tuesday in FCC docket 09-182, the main lobbyists for the broadcasting and newspaper industries also sought to get some restrictions lifted. Opponents of consolidation again said the commission should study how the sharing of services between TV stations within a market circumvents current limits (CD July 9 p6). So did cable operators including Time Warner Cable and the American Cable Association seeking changes in the way the FCC handles carriage disputes.