An impasse over FCC treatment of two types of FM stations whose representatives have been at odds was resolved late Thursday by the groups most active at the commission on the issue. That may resolve a standoff between owners of the two kinds of stations, because others are expected to support the agreement between the Educational Media Foundation, with hundreds of FM translators, and the Prometheus Radio Project, a low-power FM (LPFM) group, communications lawyers said. It may also get the commission to act on whether to cap at 10 the translator applications it will process from any filer in a 2003 window for which several thousands of requests remain pending, they said.

The Department of Justice has sent numerous demands for information about Comcast’s planned purchase of control in NBC Universal to companies in various sectors, asking many questions about programming seen on TV and over the Internet and set-top boxes and for several years’ worth of data, industry executives and lawyers said. They said the civil investigative demands (CIDs) appear to have been sent out in several batches, and some responses have recently been submitted to DOJ’s Antitrust Division. That office, with the FCC, is reviewing the multibillion dollar deal (CD July 9 p1) OR (CED June 17 p5) OR (WID May 6 p6). Some recipients said they regard the information demands as excessive because of the detail sought, sometimes down to the ZIP-code level, and the various years covered.

The FCC should expand its media ownership studies to include research on several types of agreements between TV stations within a market to share news, personnel and equipment, all the comments on the coming work said. The American Cable Association (ACA), Free Press and nine nonprofits critical of media consolidation pointed to sharing agreements in filings posted Wednesday and Thursday to docket 09-182. Shared-services agreements, local marketing agreements and local news services were mentioned. TV executives have predicted additional deals of this kind and said they let stations air more news than they could on their own (CD Oct 28 p4).

The FCC is working to demonstrate it received viewer complaints for each of the 235 Fox affiliates that got letters of inquiry on a January broadcast of American Dad that drew more than 100,000 gripes (CD June 4 p10), agency and industry officials said. That would respond in part to a recent request by a lawyer whose filings represent 86 percent of those affiliates, including some owned by Fox network parent News Corp. The request sought proof that each station had a complaint lodged against it by a viewer in its market.

Comcast’s efforts to shore up support for the cable operator’s planned purchase of control in NBC Universal bore much fruit last week, with six Latino groups supporting the deal (CD July 1 p14), now also backed by affiliates of the Big Four broadcast TV networks. Late Thursday, Comcast told the FCC it backed five conditions the affiliate groups of ABC, CBS and Fox sought (CD June 23 p3) for the cable operator to distance itself from NBC Universal-owned station carriage deals. Affiliate-group executives said they'll support Comcast-NBC Universal as long as the FCC mandates the conditions in signing off on the multi-billion dollar deal.

Tribune’s planned transfer of waivers from FCC cross-ownership rules on common ownership of radio or TV stations and daily newspapers in the same market as the bankrupt company restructures was supported by a bank that will own more than 5 percent of the new company’s stock and by some unsecured creditors. The company, the official committee of its unsecured creditors and debtholder J.P. Morgan, the administrative agent under a 2007 credit deal that will own a large chunk of stock, opposed petitions to deny the transfers. Wilmington Trust Co., which holds about $1.2 billion in subordinated debt in the owner of TV and radio stations and papers, opposed the deal, along with two unions and four non-profit groups while another union sought a delay (CD June 16 p13).

The FCC got a new chief technologist as the old one goes to work for the White House. Jon Peha, named chief technologist in 2008 under then-Chairman Kevin Martin, has been detailed to the administration’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, an FCC official said. Peha will work on issues of interest to that office and the commission, such as spectrum, the official said. Peha, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, declined to comment on his job plans. Replacing him and returning to the FCC is Douglas Sicker, who teaches computer science at the University of Colorado, the agency said Wednesday. Sicker helped work on the National Broadband Plan, was director of global architecture at Level 3 and before that was chief of the commission’s network technology division.

The FCC should “take an extraordinary step” of not enforcing equal employment opportunity rules on radio and TV stations while it retools the regime, a group representing minorities said. After a year of taking no EEO enforcement actions as of Tuesday, the commission must restructure its system by moving staff overseeing the program from the Media to the Enforcement bureau, track existing cases so statutes of limitations aren’t again breached and work more with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council said. Broadcasters closely follow EEO rules, which they expend considerable time and attention complying with, industry lawyers and officials told us.

There’s precedent for the FCC to pause the so-called shot clock in its review of Comcast’s plan to buy control of NBC Universal, though doing so more than once as the commission has in this case is somewhat rare, veteran agency and industry officials said. That the FCC has twice paused the clock, moved back to day 37 and held there until the companies file additional materials, augurs that the commission will end the review before day 180, the agency’s goal in reviewing all deals, they said. Thorough review by the commission and Justice Department had been expected and doesn’t necessarily mean the deal won’t be approved (CD Jan 19 p8).

Final FCC action on program access cases against Cablevision may be in sight now that Verizon amended its complaint and after AT&T changes its own, which may occur soon, industry and commission officials predicted Monday. Action by Media Bureau staffers reviewing the complaints that the cable operator unfairly withheld HD streams from the telcos of two regional sports networks had been awaiting the revision by Verizon, they said. AT&T said Thursday it would make a supplemental filing within 10 days if Madison Square Garden (MSG), spun off from Cablevision, didn’t start good-faith talks (CD June 25 p11).