The FCC is unlikely to act soon on renewed requests by AT&T and Verizon this week and last (CD June 3 p11) to bar cable companies from withholding access to their sports channels, said commission and industry officials. Commissioners Jonathan Adelstein and Robert McDowell haven’t asked acting Chairman Michael Copps to approve drafting an order, they said. That work probably won’t start while Copps heads the FCC, since it isn’t a consensus issue and the commissioners don’t consider it urgent, they said. But telco executives said they're optimistic of eventual action.

About two percent of all full-power TV stations can’t switch to digital service and have stopped broadcasting or will do so by June 12, FCC officials told Wednesday’s meeting. Among the 35 stations, 18 won’t transmit in digital for financial reasons, said Media Bureau Associate Chief Eloise Gore. All but one are owned by a bankrupt company, she said. Another 16 stations have digital construction issues that she expects to be resolved by year’s end, and one has a permit pending, Gore told reporters later. No other problems involving the 900-plus stations that are expected to switch to digital next Friday were identified at the meeting (CD June 3 p3).

No shortages of gear for viewers to switch to digital have been reported recently to FCC officials in the runup to the agency’s final pre-transition meeting on DTV (CD June 2 p13), agency officials said Tuesday. Commissioners continue to make quick work of the final DTV items before full-power stations switch to all-digital broadcasts next Friday. An order letting stations switch to their final digital channel when they cut off their analog signal -- anytime on June 12 - - was approved in four days, agency officials said. It was released Tuesday afternoon.

Cable operators of all sizes are giving some attention to Cablevision’s remote DVR service, likely to be allowed by courts to go forward, industry officials told us Monday. They said the industry is likely to give the service renewed attention because U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan late Friday recommended the Supreme Court not hear a challenge to a lower court’s ruling allowing the service (CD June 1 p12). Cablevision likely will be the first pay-TV company to deploy the service -- which can ultimately save operators money by sending video from cable headends instead of DVRs in set-top boxes -- as soon as summer, analysts said.

Superfast broadband isn’t needed by most Web applications and is too fast for most computers and home networks, CEO Glenn Britt of Time Warner Cable told investors Friday. Cable and telco executives have said very high-speed service, by which they usually mean faster than 50 Mbps, will become increasingly important as more people use video streaming, content uploading, multiplayer gaming and social networking applications (CD Oct 6 p3). Speaking at the Sanford Bernstein conference, Britt did say demand for bandwidth is increasing.

The FCC invited eight industry and consumer groups to testify about DTV at the commission’s monthly meeting, which will concern only the transition (CD May 28 p8), industry officials said. The meeting Wednesday probably will feature one panel of government officials and another of industry representatives, an executive said. The groups invited were the Association for Maximum Service Television, the Association of Public Television Stations, the CEA, the Consumer Electronics Retailers Coalition, Consumers Union, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the NAB and the NCTA. The witnesses are expected to be David Donovan, Larry Sidman, Shawn DuBravac, Chris McLean, Joel Kelsey, Erica Swanson, Jane Mago and Kyle McSlarrow. All witnesses confirmed their representatives will attend. An FCC spokesman declined to comment.

Some fear that Puerto Rico won’t have enough DTV converter boxes after June 12, they said. Their concern is that residents of the island, where a greater proportion of viewers rely on over-the-air TV than in any state, may make the transition late and it will take time to get supplies from the mainland.

An FCC ban on exclusive deals between apartment buildings and pay-TV providers was upheld Tuesday in a ruling by the U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia Circuit. It dismissed arguments by the cable industry that a section of the Communications Act the commission relied on in its 2007 order didn’t cover the deals. Judge David Tatel wrote the ruling, endorsed by Judges Merrick Garland and Laurence Silberman. USTelecom, Verizon and AT&T, an intervenor in NCTA v. FCC, said the ruling bolsters video competition.

The FCC upheld a 2006 order letting Rupert Murdoch transfer control of Fox Television Stations to Fox Entertainment. The order was approved 3-2 by the commissioners Jan. 15 and released Friday evening. The FCC had approved the company’s request for a continued waiver of cross-ownership rules so it could own the New York Post, WWOR-TV Secaucus, N.J., and WNYW New York. The commission dismissed opposition from the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition and the United Church of Christ, saying they had no standing because they hadn’t taken part in the original proceeding. It also dismissed an earlier Free Press opposition. The objection was overlooked because of “the informal nature of Free Press’s original objection and the fact that Free Press took no action to renew its objection when the transfer applications were filed and placed on public notice,” the new order said. “Because the grant of the waiver simply involves an internal corporate restructuring and does not create any new media combinations, it does not reduce the diversity of voices in the New York market.” The new order was accompanied by statements by Commissioners Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps dissenting from the 2006 order but not put out with it. The dissenters said the older order didn’t include a thorough analysis of the cross-ownership waivers. The new order “does nothing to address these concerns,” Copps said. “It fails to even mention the fact that, with the acquisition of the Wall Street Journal, News Corp. operates two of the New York market’s most popular television stations and two of its most popular newspapers.” News Corp., Free Press and Rainbow/PUSH didn’t respond to messages seeking comment or declined to comment. The order “is a slap from the dead hand of the previous administration,” said Cheryl Leanza, policy director of the United Church of Christ, a petitioner. “It could not exemplify more the problems of the lack of transparency, and incremental erosion of media ownership rules that we have suffered from for many years.” Also late Friday, the FCC released eight other broadcast- related orders approved by the commissioners, including two from May 2008. The order “is a slap from the dead hand of the previous administration,” said Cheryl Leanza, policy director of the United Church of Christ, a petitioner. “It could not exemplify more the problems of the lack of transparency, and incremental erosion of media ownership rules that we have suffered from for many years.” People familiar with the orders said the lag between approval and publication came about partly because commissioners’ written statements were held up. The orders were “finalized and released in the backlog clearing-out process,” an FCC spokesman said.

There are several non-DTV media items that FCC and industry officials believe can soon be addressed by the agency under acting Chairman Michael Copps, even as eighth- floor media aides spend most of their time on the digital transition. Our survey of about a dozen FCC officials, outside lawyers and industry executives found they think a vote on a video programming order for News Corp. circulated on Kevin Martin’s last workday as chairman (CD Jan 27 p3) is likely to take place under Copps’ so-called consensus agenda.