Clear Channel’s $26.7 billion takeover was approved 5-0 by FCC commissioners, agency sources said late Wednesday. The vote came despite concern over the deal by Commissioner Michael Copps, who’s expected to express his misgivings in a separate statement issued when the order is released, perhaps within weeks, said agency and industry officials. Copps probably dissented in part or concurred, the sources said. He was the last commissioner to vote for the deal, casting his ballot Tuesday, two FCC sources said. An FCC spokeswoman declined to comment.

AM stations should be able to use FM translators to fill in coverage in home markets when listeners face interference or when FCC rules bar night broadcasts, dozens of broadcasters told the FCC in response to a rulemaking (CD Aug 16 p11). Cross-band use of translators was supported in 53 filings by broadcasters and their lobbying groups (Docket 07- 172). A group of low-power FM stations was the lone on- record foe of the plan, which National Public Radio urged the FCC to carry out slowly. The NAB proposal seems likely to be adopted by the FCC, industry officials have said. All commissioners have publicly indicated they at least partly support it.

Media and telecom companies split over whether the FCC should revamp program-access rules to keep programmers from offering incentives to multichannel video programming distributors that buy several channels from a provider. The agency should let small MVPDs strike favorable deals to carry one channel, groups representing them said in response to an FCC rulemaking notice. Cable programmers and broadcasters said they don’t discriminate in pricing channel packages, and there’s nothing in the way of a pay-TV provider’s carrying a single channel, though perhaps at a cost higher than in a package. The notice that the FCC approved at its Sept. 11 meeting has led many media lobbyists to complain that FCC Chairman Kevin Martin hopes to use it to promote a la carte (CD Sept 4 p5).

Suddenlink began carrying KCEN-TV Temple, Texas, after it stopped airing LIN’s KXAN-TV Austin in a contract dispute. Late Thursday, Suddenlink said it started carrying KCEN to subscribers in Georgetown, Pflugerville and Leander. Both stations are NBC affiliates, and Suddenlink is carrying KCEN analog and high-definition signals. On Dec. 31, the cable operator stopped carrying KXAN and KBIM-TV Roswell, N.M., due to a dispute in which LIN sought payment for permission to carry the stations (CD Jan 2 p13). Suddenlink said it later “increased its offer” to carry KXAN in areas unable to get another NBC station, but LIN rebuffed that overture. The cable operator said it offered to carry KXAN as a separate channel for which subscribers would pay a fee, to be passed on to LIN, but that, too, was rejected. Suddenlink is “more than happy” to resume talks with LIN “if they wish,” a spokesman for the cable operator said. LIN is willing to negotiate, said Executive Vice President of Digital Media Greg Schmidt. Suddenlink’s offer to put the station on a digital, a la carte channel would be a raw deal because it would require LIN to promote the station to the company’s subscribers, Schmidt said in an interview. Airing KXAN only in areas that don’t get KCEN is a non-starter as well, said Schmidt. In lieu of cash for carriage, Suddenlink’s offer for promotional time on its systems, with a small number of subscribers in the affected area, wouldn’t have very much value to LIN, he added. “Our problem all along has just been why don’t you pay us the way you pay your cable networks? Like a lot of cable guys, they're insisting that the money not be paid in cash, which is in no way fair.”

The FCC is drafting rules on testing for interference to AM antennas (CD Sept 17 p4) by emissions from cellular, wireless data and two-way radio and other communications towers, said three proponents of the computer analysis method. Media Bureau officials are working on an order, with a draft expected by month’s end, said Ray Benedict, head of a group of 33 broadcasters supporting method of moment testing. The order would go to the office of Chairman Kevin Martin for review and circulation among colleagues, said Benedict. He hopes for a mid-April vote. “It seems to have good support in the Media Bureau,” he said. “The issue will just be that the commission is so busy and finding time to look at it” is hard.

Senior Capitol Hill aides will discuss the DTV transition at the CES conference in Las Vegas Monday, said the event organizer. A 10:30 a.m. panel includes Neil Fried, aide to the House Commerce Committee, and Amy Levine, his counterpart at the Senate Commerce Committee. An aide to Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., will also speak, CEA said Thursday. This year’s gathering will be the first CES conference to be attended by all five FCC commissioners, the trade group said Wednesday. But not all commissioners will speak at the event, said a CEA spokesman. FCC Chairman Martin will discuss DTV, the 700 MHz auction and broadband deployment at a Tuesday “one-on-one discussion” with CEA President Gary Shapiro, the group said. At the 2007 show, Martin unveiled key elements of his CableCARD policy (CD Jan 11 p1). Some industry officials have speculated that Martin may discuss the FCC’s two-way plug and play rulemaking this year. But there’s no plug and play order on the eighth floor, said an FCC source.

It’s unclear whether a national cable ownership cap approved 3-2 at last month’s commissioner meeting (CD Dec 19 p1) will apply to all cable and telecommunications companies selling TV, said industry officials. It’s clear that the cap limits to 30 percent the number of all satellite, telco-TV and cable subscribers a cable operator can have, said industry and FCC officials. Less certain is how the as-yet- released rule will apply to telecommunications companies. Satellite companies won’t be capped, said FCC officials and cable lawyers.

Broadcasters got some of the leeway they sought to install digital TV equipment and make other technical changes before the transition, under an FCC order released Monday (CD Jan 2 p12) that was eagerly awaited by the industry. The third periodic DTV review order said it gave TV stations the flexibility they need to make the transition. It lets them broadcast in digital on analog channel slots until Feb. 18, 2010 in certain situations, and said the agency will consider granting waivers to broadcasters who can’t finish building their digital facilities by Feb. 17, 2009. But industry didn’t get some things it sought (CD Aug 17 p3), including the ability to get waivers based on equipment shortages for gear not already ordered and a one-year period after the analog cutoff to ramp up service. Commissioners now will turn their attention to a DTV consumer education order.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is trying to schedule meetings further out, after facing congressional criticism for giving the public too little notice of events (CD Dec 6 p1), two agency officials said. His office recently asked aides to the other commissioners to help him set dates for monthly meetings for the next six months, they said. Martin set Jan. 17 and Feb. 26 as the next ones. That’s a departure from the recent practice of scheduling each month’s meeting one at a time and a few weeks in advance. As in previous years, January’s meeting will be light on rulemakings and instead focus on annual bureau reviews, three FCC sources said.

NFL lobbying for FCC intervention in a carriage dispute may have backfired, industry sources said: Many in Congress became sympathetic to cable operators and asked the league to allow a big game to be aired widely. The NFL’s announcement late Wednesday that it will let CBS and NBC carry an NFL Network feed of a game between the New England Patriots and New York Giants (CD Dec 27 p8) came in part because of congressional pressure on the league, they said. A spokesman for the NFL Network said it’s putting the game on broadcast TV because Cablevision and Time Warner Cable won’t carry it and Comcast doesn’t distribute the network widely. The network said it plans to continue lobbying.