The Supreme Court probably will hear oral arguments in late 2008 on whether the FCC can fine broadcasters for airing one obscenity during a show, industry lawyers said. The high court agreed to hear U.S. v. Fox during its fall term (CD March 18 p3). But that may not occur until November, said Media Access Project President Andrew Schwartzman. He took part in the case at the 2nd U.S. Appeals Court in New York. “The Supreme Court has already taken a lot of cases for next year,” making a late 2008 hearing likely, he said. The court’s fall term lasts until June 2009. The government’s brief in the case is due 60 days from last Monday and respondents’ briefs 30 days later. But extensions of the deadlines are frequent, and the court will likely rule in 2009, he said. A decision “will give broadcasters clarity regarding the use of profanity, even fleeting profanity, on the public airwaves at times when children are most likely to be in the audience,” FCC Commissioner Deborah Tate said in a written statement late Monday.

The FCC commissioners tentatively agreed to give direct broadcast satellite system operators until 2013 (CD March 17 p2) to carry all TV stations in high definition in every market they serve with at least one local signal, said agency officials. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin and his colleagues all made commitments to vote for a revised order extending the deadline for DirecTV and Dish Network from 2009, the sources said. Three FCC members have agreed so far to vote for a provision that encourages but doesn’t require the DBS companies to offer so-called local into local service in all 210 U.S. markets, the sources said. Broadcasters had sought that provision.

Low-power stations will stop calling NTIA’s digital converter box coupon program a “scam” in DTV transition spots. Community Broadcasters Association President Ron Bruno said “scam” has been removed from PSAs on keepuson.com. House Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich., said in a March 7 letter to the group that he had “concerns” about the word. Bruno said NTIA broke the law by not requiring all boxes to have analog and digital tuners. “We believe that taxpayer dollars are and were being misspent in the coupon program, and the public has been misled,” Bruno wrote Dingell on Thursday. “However, we do not wish the discussion over the merits of the converter box program to be diverted to concern over particular words. We have accordingly, as you requested, removed the use of the word ’scam’ from the keepuson.com website.” The word is being scrubbed from the PSAs, CBA attorney Peter Tannenwald said in an interview. Revised spots will be ready this week, said Tannenwald. But CBA won’t make “promises about other words” that might be used in PSAs, “and we don’t know how many stations ever ran the old spots,” he added. Bruno told lawmakers that implementing an FCC proposal to let Class A low-power TV stations get full-power status as they convert to digital wouldn’t hurt current full-power broadcasters. Dingell asked about the PSAs and Class A stations after Bruno testified to the committee (CD Feb 14 p1). FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has not gotten colleagues’ support for a notice that would help Class A stations get full-power status. “A Class A station could be required to demonstrate that no pre-existing station would receive prohibited interference” when upgrading to digital, Bruno wrote. “The existing interference rules for Class A stations are no less strict than those applicable among full-power stations.”

Satellite-TV providers are poised to win a delay to a proposed FCC deadline (CD Feb 28 p2) that they carry all TV stations in high definition in every market they serve, commission and industry officials said. Chairman Kevin Martin is expected to circulate soon a revised order giving DirecTV and Dish years beyond 2009 to meet the carry-one, carry-all mandate, commission officials said. They said Media Bureau officials are redoing an order that Martin circulated Feb. 6 that would have set a Feb. 17, 2009, deadline. The chairman wants his colleagues to vote on a new order Wednesday at the monthly FCC meeting.

Under FCC digital TV carriage rules small cable operators won’t have to use more capacity after the transition than now, Chairman Kevin Martin told reporters Tuesday. The American Cable Association has asked the FCC to exempt small systems from a mandate that they distribute must-carry broadcasters’ digital signals to analog customers for three years starting Feb. 17, 2009 (CD March 4 p11). Martin said a waiver process in 2007’s so-called viewability order “makes the most sense,” rather than the across-the- board exemption ACA seeks. “All we are asking the small cable operators to end up doing is to be doing the same thing they're carrying today,” Martin said: “I don’t think that this increases the capacity of what they're required to carry beyond what they're required to carry today.” The Association for Maximum Service TV and NAB asked the FCC to dismiss a request for “a blanket waiver from the viewability rules,” in a joint filing Monday. “All subscribers are entitled to a viewable signal,” they said.

Low-power broadcasters doubt they can achieve expanded carriage on cable systems and requirements that all digital TV converter boxes pick up their signals. Representing low- power stations not moving to DTV in 2009, Community Broadcasters Association officials met last week with aides to more than 20 members of Congress and with four FCC commissioners and a staffer of the fifth, Chairman Kevin Martin (CD Feb 29 p4). They came away feeling that there’s little political will behind introducing a bill to require pay-TV providers to carry the signals of some low-power stations, they said. CBA officials may disrupt efforts to educate viewers about the transition if their concerns aren’t dealt with, they threatened. CEA President Gary Shapiro said Thursday the group’s efforts could derail the transition. “CBA seeks to create massive confusion among millions of consumers who neither require nor desire an analog passthrough capability in their converter boxes,” a CEA spokesman said Friday.

Low-power broadcasters will imperil the digital transition if they succeed in getting the NTIA to change rules for DTV converter boxes (CD Feb 12 p2), CEA President Gary Shapiro told a Media Institute lunch Thursday in Washington. If the Community Broadcasters Association gets the FCC to decide that devices that don’t pass along analog signals are illegal, it “means a delay in the transition,” Shapiro said. “It would obliterate a multi-billion dollar investment by manufacturers” to produce dozens of models of boxes, some of which have the so-called passthrough features, said Shapiro: “We're asking the FCC to ignore the CBA’s petition.”

FCC commissioners seem willing to give DirecTV and EchoStar more time than a draft order proposes to carry all TV stations in high definition in every market they serve, commission officials said. An order that FCC Chairman Kevin Martin circulated Feb. 6 would require satellite-TV providers by February 2009 to carry all of a market’s stations in HD if they distribute any (CD Feb 21 p2), agency officials said. In meetings last week, DirecTV and EchoStar executives told FCC members and their aides of challenges to meeting that requirement, ex-parte filings show.

DirecTV’s $11 billion controlling stake can shift to Liberty Media from News Corp., the FCC said late Monday in a release. The deal benefits the public because Liberty and News Corp. “would sever their ownership interests with each other which will decrease media consolidation and reduce vertical integration,” the agency said. Commissioners Jonathan Adelstein, issuing a partial dissent, and Michael Copps, concurring, noted that the deal reduces industry consolidation. “A little media deconsolidation is better than no deconsolidation at all,” wrote Adelstein. The only reason Copps didn’t vote “no” is that there’s “a measure of de-consolidation,” he said. The order approving the deal was issued Tuesday, letting staff adjust the text to reflect elements on which commissioners recently agreed, FCC officials said. Under the order, Liberty and DirecTV will have to adhere to most of the programming conditions the agency imposed in 2003 when the same stake in the satellite TV provider was sold to News Corp. by General Motors. Copps voted against that transfer. The 2003 conditions as recast address program access, program carriage, and provisions on regional sports network arbitration and retransmission consent arbitration, the commission release said. The conditions will apply for six more years, said an FCC official. Liberty has a year to sell or reduce its ownership to a “non-attributable level” in Liberty Cablevision of Puerto Rico or DirecTV operations there, the agency said. The FCC Democrats lamented the lack of a requirement that DirecTV carry signals of TV stations in all 210 TV markets by satellite. On its own, DirecTV will give all subscribers in all markets access to stations either by satellite or by selling them extra gear -- and that “amounts to a rural or undesired market tax,” wrote Adelstein. It was “approved by members of the commission who have often complained about video distributors requiring consumers to purchase expensive set-top boxes when cheaper alternatives could be made available,” he added. In exchange for the DirecTV holding, Liberty will return its stake in News Corp. to that company. So the companies could complete the asset swap Tuesday, FCC commissioners agreed to issue a release clearing the transaction (CD Feb 26 p1). A spokesman for Liberty didn’t return messages to comment on when the deal will close.

All the other FCC commissioners balked at a plan by Chairman Kevin Martin (CD Feb 12 p2) that would pave the way for hundreds of low-power broadcasters to demand carriage on cable systems and would set an analog cutoff date for the stations, commission officials said. Martin told reporters early this month he had circulated a rulemaking notice for a vote by Tuesday that would have tentatively decided the approximately 500 Class A low-power stations should get “at the front of the line” to apply for full-power licenses. Licensees get must-carry rights, among other things, he said then.