The FCC extended a freeze on analog broadcast cutoffs from March 14 to April 16, as it had proposed (CD Feb 24 p2), and required all stations to tell viewers they should periodically re-scan digital converter boxes. In an order Friday, it also said stations switching frequencies between UHF and VHF must tell viewers they may need additional equipment to continue getting reception. To stop analog service before June 12, affiliates of ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC must run “walk-in” consumer help centers and take several other steps if a Big Four affiliate in the same market won’t serve at least 90 percent of its Grade B contour with analog, it said.

The Obama administration is developing a DTV “search and rescue” plan for the approximately 4 million U.S. households unprepared for the transition, FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein said Friday. He and representatives from outside groups met Thursday at the White House to discuss “what we're going to do,” he said. The White House, the FCC and the NTIA are working on the DTV plan, Adelstein said.

The FCC is preparing contracting requests for helping viewers make the digital switch by June 12, agency officials said. That will help the agency spend the approximately $86.5 million in additional education money that it likely will get, they said. The commission will soon issue a request for quotes or request for proposals for a company to answer phone calls about the transition, they said. IBM received a $12 million order to handle up to 2 million calls the week of Feb. 17, when full-power broadcasters nationwide were to have stopped analog service.

AT&T and Comcast discriminate against public, educational and governmental channels by treating them differently than commercial programming, said several cities, public access programmers and municipal groups in FCC filings Monday and Tuesday. The companies and other industry filings said the pay-TV providers are complying with the Communications Act. Petitions seeking FCC action on the subject (CD Feb 10 p11) from the Alliance for Community Media and Michigan cities of Dearborn and Lansing should be dismissed, cable and telco filings said. More than 100 comments were filed, including from New York City, Miami and San Jose, Calif.

The FCC commissioners probably will unanimously approve this week a second order for carrying out the DTV Delay Act, said commission officials and industry executives. It’s expected to deal with viewer education and requirements imposed on stations going all-digital before June 12. Officials of the Media Bureau and commissioners’ offices worked late last week on drafting the order, FCC officials said. They said the bureau was expected to circulate the proposal on the eighth floor late Monday. Approval should be quick because commissioners’ offices started working through details before circulation, the officials said.

The low-power TV industry, with a station shutting down almost daily, renewed a push to seek government help (CD March 3/08 p1) to make the digital transition and gain cable distribution, Community Broadcasters Association officials said. Meeting recently with all FCC members to present a survey showing most of the U.S.’s 2,822 low-power stations are minority and/or women-owned, they sought to revive a scuttled rulemaking and get action on a 2001 petition. Commissioners told us they want to try to help, but full- power broadcast executives said the low-power industry faces challenges in getting what it seeks.

All FCC commissioners expressed concern about possible DTV reception problems at Thursday’s open FCC meeting. It was devoted to the lessons from early analog shutoffs by about one-third of the nation’s 1,798 full-power stations. All agreed that some portion of viewers will lose at least one station in their market as analog and digital coverage areas diverge. Commissioners and industry officials said the Feb. 17 analog cutoff by 421 stations went well and offers guidance (CD March 2 p3) for switches to digital through the new deadline of June 12.

The FCC wants to know how parental-control technologies can be improved across a wide range of consumer electronics, cable, satellite and wireless devices. For an upcoming report to Congress, the commission sought comments on how “advanced blocking technologies” can be used across the devices. The FCC released a notice of inquiry late Monday, at a deadline set by the Child Safe Viewing Act (CD Feb 26 p7). It asked what’s considered indecent or objectionable and what constitutes a blocking technology.

Comcast has been “far more open” about how the cable operator manages its network after a 3-2 FCC order last year found its treatment of peer-to-peer applications violated net neutrality guidelines (CD Aug 4 p1), said the lawyer who brought the complaint. Once the order had three commissioners’ votes, “there was a little more dialogue with Comcast,” Marvin Ammori, then Free Press general counsel, told a Practising Law Institute conference on cable. “We did not think Comcast was coming clean,” said Ammori, now a professor at the University of Nebraska. “They kept dodging questions, not really playing well with others. They do now.”

Broadcasters, cable operators and call takers learned lessons from the Feb. 17 analog turnoff by 421 stations that will smooth the DTV switch by the rest of full-power U.S. outlets in June, they told us. Coordination between broadcast and cable engineers, adding call takers at cable operators, the FCC and elsewhere, and consumer education on digital converter box use worked last month and should help June 12, they said. Some broadcast officials said Congress shouldn’t have pushed off the national transition four months, because that successful early switch (CD Feb 19 p1) showed the postponement’s cost to businesses outweighs the scant benefit to the public. But others said more time will greatly reduce problems on June 12.