Details of the FCC’s Future of Media project are being worked out after being formally introduced last week to commissioners at their monthly meeting, according to the project leader and to agency officials observing the planning. Steve Waldman, an aide to Chairman Julius Genachowski who’s heading up the review, said he’s working out details such as whether his project will be completed before or after the 2010 media ownership review. In his presentation at the commission meeting -- which ended around 6:30 p.m. Thursday (CD Feb 19 p2) -- he said a report will be completed sometime this year.
Former FCC Chairman Kevin Martin bought a Georgetown row house in January for $1.5 million, D.C. records show, and the sellers seem to have been Jonathan Blake, a communications lawyer at Covington & Burling, and his wife, Elizabeth Shriver, said Jamie Peva of Washington Fine Properties. He and others said the house hadn’t been listed on a database for agents that includes most properties for sale. Peva was involved in previous efforts to sell their house, which Blake and Shriver had bought for $1.9 million in 2006. Peva and brokers not involved in the deal said the price that Martin paid seemed fair. Blake and Martin didn’t reply to messages seeking comment.
A rulemaking notice on ex parte rules asks if the amount of time to file them should be doubled in most cases, while giving those lobbying the FCC in the seven days before an item is voted on at a meeting less time to complete the paperwork. Many filings are made late, often by a day or two (CD Feb 18 p4). The notice approved at Thursday’s meeting seeks comment on whether those paying lobbying calls to the regulator outside the Sunshine Period should have two business days to make ex parte filings, said staffer Julie Veach. The meeting continued into the early evening as staffers discussed the National Broadband Plan.
Large and small companies and advocacy groups made late ex parte filings even as an FCC rulemaking notice on ex parte procedures was circulating. A review of more than 1,000 filings posted online by the commission Nov. 1 to Feb. 12 on a variety of issues found that this is a continuing practice. The rulemaking is set for a Thursday vote (CD Feb 10 p5).
A new program access item awaiting an FCC vote doesn’t impose additional rules and instead ensures those in an order approved 4-1 at last month’s meeting (CD Jan 21 p2) are consistent among themselves, a commission official said. The item is an erratum that makes ministerial rather than substantive changes and should be approved soon, the person said. The Media Bureau circulated the item Feb. 3, the FCC’s website said. A bureau spokeswoman declined to comment on the draft item.
The fight between some minority stations and Arbitron over its audience measurement devices escalated, with the company suing a major Spanish-language broadcaster and a judge’s approval of a temporary restraining order against the defendant. New York Supreme Court Judge Shirley Kornreich in Manhattan agreed Thursday to the company’s request to order Spanish Broadcasting System to resume encoding its broadcasts at nine radio stations in big cities so Arbitron Portable People Meters can measure them. A coalition of SBS and several other major owners of radio stations targeting African Americans and Hispanics said the suit shows Arbitron forces broadcasters to accept “unreasonable terms.”
Broadcasters, their lawyers and lobbyists said they worry a performance-royalty obligation may be inserted in critical House legislation this winter or spring. The Performance Rights Act (HR-848), to impose royalties for musicians on terrestrial radio, hasn’t passed either house of Congress. It’s supported by music labels and opposed by broadcasters. Talks between the sides, brokered on Capitol Hill, failed to produce an agreement (WID Nov 19 p3). Broadcasting executives say they fear that supporters of the bill such as House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., and Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., may try new methods.
A revised draft rulemaking on ex parte filings would require a filing any time an FCC member, aide or bureau staffer is lobbied regarding a proceeding, commission officials said. The current rules require documentation when someone from outside the FCC covers ground not included in previous filings, such as comments on proceedings. Ex parte filings are often but not always made in these situations (CD Sept 14 p1), the officials said. The documents sometimes are so brief that they don’t reveal what was discussed.
Cable, phone and wireless networks generally fared well during and after the blizzard across the Mid-Atlantic U.S. that closed the federal government in Washington, leaving several hundred thousand homes without power. Our survey of direct-broadcast satellite and cable providers, TV stations in Washington, and wireline and wireless companies found no major network problems over the weekend or Monday. Some Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile cell sites were without electricity and some Verizon phone customers didn’t have service, company spokespeople said.
The first new full-power TV stations to be authorized by the FCC in a while drew scant interest in comments on a recent proposal. Only one broadcaster that filed in dockets 09-230 and 09-231 said it’s interested in either of the stations, in Seaford, Del., and Atlantic City, N.J., our review of the filings found. Nave Broadcasting would apply for the Atlantic City DTV station, to be on channel 4, it said.