A FCC report on parental controls across many platforms due Monday to Congress makes no recommendations for legislation and reaches no conclusions, commission officials said. The report is required by the Child Safe Viewing Act and sets up many issues for a forthcoming notice of inquiry on kids and media, said industry and commission officials. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has said the Media Bureau is working on the notice (CD Aug 21 p1). He listed it as among his near-term media priorities.

David Rehr, who suddenly resigned as head of the NAB this year, found a new job at as a consultant to a company that says it helps organize “Washington Fly-Ins” for groups to make their case to members of Congress and their aides. Rehr was named senior adviser of Leading Authorities. He won’t be an employee but will work in a “senior advisory consulting capacity and for lectures to top level audiences,” President Mark French told us Thursday. Rehr had gone to work at public relations firm Crosby Volmer during his job search (CD June 5 p10). He and the firm’s president didn’t reply immediately to messages seeking comment.

The NAB’s search for a new leader has advanced to the point that the committee overseeing it seems ready to meet with as many as a dozen candidates next week, said broadcast industry officials not involved in the search. They'll probably meet Tuesday and Wednesday in what’s likely to be an initial round of in-person interviews, arranged by executive headhunter Russell Reynolds Associates, between the entire search committee and the contenders, the officials. One said a second round of interviews may take place Sept. 8 and 9. Former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt is said by some closely watching the search to be in the running, but he told us he isn’t. A spokesman for the association declined to comment. An NAB board member said a new president probably would be named this summer (CD May 11 p5). But it may not happen until the fall, an industry official said.

The NCTA is getting two new executives. Rick Chessen is leaving the FCC and Dianne Smith has left Fox Television Stations to join the cable lobbying group, communications lawyers said. Chessen is Commissioner Michael Copps’ chief legal aide. He was Copps’ chief of staff while the commissioner was the acting FCC chairman. He'll head the NCTA’s legal department, filling the job that Dan Brenner left in March (CD March 2 p12), industry officials said. Long-time broadcast lawyer Smith will take a newly created job at the NCTA as liaison between the legal and lobbying departments, they said. Smith left Fox on Aug. 14, according to a recording on her work voicemail. We couldn’t reach her for comment. Chessen and an NCTA spokesman declined to comment.

Telcos and small cable operators want the FCC to end the terrestrial exemption for delivering cable programming to competitors, or get rid of major elements, because legislators busy with other matters haven’t acted, said executives of industry groups. They continue to hope that the FCC will ban cable operators and programmers affiliated with them from withholding at least sports and HD programming from other pay-TV providers (CD June 5 p2). But supporters of change acknowledged debate about whether the commission can alter the exemption involved. They predicted that if the FCC acts, an appeals court probably will be asked to second- guess its authority.

Cisco, Motorola and two other major set-top box makers got CableCARD waivers from the FCC allowing all U.S. cable operators to deploy any of nine stripped-down models over the next three years. A Media Bureau order released Tuesday made good on a promise by the full commission this summer, in granting a small manufacturer’s waiver, that the bureau would deal quickly with similar requests from other companies (CD June 3 p10). The CEA opposes this week’s waiver order but doesn’t now plan to file a petition for reconsideration, a spokeswoman said. Small cable operators are among those likely to benefit, American Cable Association President Matt Polka told us.

The FCC should get comments for the broadband plan from those who don’t usually deal with the commission by reaching out in ways like those used for DTV education, two commissioners and four members of the committee advising the FCC on broadband told us. Commissioners’ visits to senior centers, libraries and other gatherings to spread the word about DTV before the June 12 transition and FCC work with community groups and other not-for- profits on full-power broadcasters’ analog shutoff hold lessons for developing the broadband plan due in February, they said. In seeking to get people without Internet service to increase their use of the Web, the commission is trying to reach many of the same people considered at risk in the analog cutoff, some said.

Broadcasters are seeking digital-signal changes from the FCC because some VHF stations remain troubled by reception problems, said about a dozen industry executives and commission officials we surveyed. One problem is interference to antennas inside homes from other electronics. The commission received several hundred applications over the past year or so from DTV stations seeking to run distributed transmission systems, operate translators, change channels or increase power levels, said commission officials. Broadcasters and the FCC are running tests to see how reception can be improved, said industry and agency officials.

The group that has lobbied for low-power TV stations since 1985 blamed its going out of business recently(CD Aug 14 p10) on inaction by lawmakers and regulators on DTV, carriage and digital equipment funding issues. The group, the Community Broadcasters Association, had long warned that additional low-power stations would close and the industry could face financial ruin without government intervention (CD March 9 p6). But the association said it shut down because it was running a budget deficit and members wouldn’t agree to a surcharge to cover it.

“It seems odd” that the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network got a favorable FCC Media Bureau ruling on its carriage dispute with Comcast but the Enforcement Bureau recently recommended that an administrative law judge side with the cable operator, said WealthTV CEO Robert Herring. “If the FCC lets stand that withholding carriage does not cause harm, [that] completely guts” Section 616 of the Communications Act “and will cause major repercussions to independent programmers,” Herring told us. The bureau weighed in against WealthTV’s program carriage complaint against Comcast and three other cable operators being heard by the same judge, Richard Sippel, the commission’s chief administrative law judge. Herring said his case and MASN v. Comcast were treated differently because a statement by Comcast Chief Operating Officer Steve Burke was allowed into the record in the MASN case but not WealthTV’s. Burke said Comcast treated channels it owned like “siblings,” Herring said. FCC precedent for MASN’s arguments includes the commission’s 2006 order approving Comcast and Time Warner Cable’s purchase of Adelphia and the Media Bureau’s ruling in MASN v. Time Warner, an industry official said.