An FCC advisory committee voted Monday for actions billed as helping minorities raise capital and independent programmers get low-power FM licenses, two participants said. The Advisory Committee on Diversity for Communications in the Digital Age unanimously voted to recommend that the agency set up an event in New York early in 2008 for minority-group members to meet Wall Street and other investors interested in financing media and telecommunications deals, said committee chairman Henry Rivera. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin told the committee he would try to attend the gathering, the idea for which was first raised by Commissioner Deborah Tate, said Rivera, a commissioner from 1981 to 1985. The FCC commissioners will be invited to the event, where the advisory committee will hold its next meeting, Rivera said. He said Martin sought committee suggestions on a rulemaking that aims to help minorities buy radio and TV stations. If the chairman issues a further rulemaking notice on how to define small, disadvantaged businesses for purposes of commission rules, the subcommittee would consider recommendations, Rivera said. The definition is part of a minority media ownership rulemaking that Martin has set for a vote by the commissioners Tuesday. (See separate report in this issue.) The advisory group also voted on two low-power FM recommendations, said Rivera and Media Access Project President Andrew Schwartzman, also a committee member. The committee unanimously endorsed a recent FCC recommendation that Congress eliminate third-adjacent channel protection rules limiting the amount of spectrum available to LPFM licensees, they said. Another recommendation would allow full-power radio stations to move between cities in their markets but in some cases require them to underwrite some costs of licensing and building an LPFM station. One member abstained from a vote on the second LPFM recommendation, Rivera added.

The Tuesday FCC meeting will be heavy on media items. Five of the agenda’s seven items concern cable and broadcast rulemakings. The most controversial may be a rulemaking that deregulates cross-ownership rules. (See separate report in this issue.) The commissioners also will vote on a report on how well broadcasters serve their communities, the FCC said late Tuesday. That report, which includes no rules, gives an overview of the issue and a rulemaking notice, said commission officials. And the commissioners will vote on an order on minority media ownership and a rulemaking notice on sponsorship identification. The proposed order would approve more than a dozen measures billed as helping minorities and women buy radio and TV stations, agency officials have said. Also set for a vote is an order capping at 30 percent the proportion of U.S. pay-TV subscribers that one cable company can serve. The FCC also will consider a notice of proposed rulemaking to settle a decade-long interference dispute in the 2.3 GHz band between Wireless Communications Service and satellite radio. The rulemaking likely will be short on tentative conclusions, mainly seeking comment on rules proposed separately for the band by Sirius and the WCS Coalition. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin began circulating the item Nov. 20 (CD Nov 16 p5).

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin violated the Administrative Procedure Act or similar procedural controls in his media ownership deregulation proposal, both foes and fans of consolidation told the agency in comments on an order Martin scheduled for a Tuesday vote. Several broadcasters said the chairman violated administrative laws, including the APA, by not entirely repealing a 1975 ban on a company owning a daily newspaper and a TV or radio station in the same city. Foes of deregulation said Martin ran afoul of the APA in the unusual way he publicized his plan. The accusations come as other commissioners and members of Congress from both parties take the FCC to task for its rulemaking under Martin (CD Dec 6 p1). Martin says he followed APA rules. Other FCC officials, opponents of consolidation and a professor of administrative law said Martin’s method of announcing his plan was unusual.

U.S. cable operators added fewer digital video subscribers last quarter than they have in two years, Pike & Fischer said. During the third quarter digital subscriber rolls grew 14 percent from a year ago to 35.5 million at all cable operators except systems with 20,000 or fewer customers each, said analyst Scott Sleek. That’s 29 percent less than the gain in the third quarter of 2006, the research firm said. Digital subscriptions comprise 61 percent of basic cable customers, which Pike & Fischer pegs at 57.8 million. That’s lower than other sources’ subscriber estimates, with Sanford Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett tallying 63.5 million basic customers in a Nov. 21 letter to FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein. Pike & Fischer gets data directly from the largest cable operators and estimates of growth at most small and privately held companies but not some very small systems, said Sleek.

The FCC shouldn’t automatically let cities and counties initiate emergency alerts, now triggered only by the President and by state authorities, said broadcasters, cable operators and telecommunications companies. Responding to a rulemaking, some TV industry filers said municipalities should send alerts to state agencies for redistribution to broadcast, cable and telco TV. A municipal body said authorizing cities to sound alerts would improve safety in disasters. Talks continue on multilingual alerts between broadcasters and advocates for people who don’t speak English (CD Nov 7 p4), another subject of the rulemaking, a participant said.

The Senate should pass an indecency bill authorizing the FCC to fine broadcasters for airing any program that includes a single obscenity or one nude image, said Commerce Committee Ranking Member Ted Stevens, R-Alaska. He co-sponsored the Protecting Children from Indecent Programming Act (S-1780), approved by the Senate Commerce Committee. Enactment of the bill would nullify a remand of the FCC’s fleeting indecency policy by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York. Though many senators seem to back it, the bill’s prospects for quick Senate floor action don’t seem good, Hill sources said.

If the FCC doesn’t open up its rulemaking procedures Congress may step in, David Cavicke, minority counsel for the House Commerce Committee, said Tuesday at an FCBA conference just before a Hill hearing on related issues. The Senate Commerce Committee wants a more open regulatory process, said committee majority counsel James Assey. The committee will take up that issue and matters at an oversight hearing next week, Assey said, adding that Congress and the public need to be better informed about commission “process.”

Government, broadcasters and civil rights bodies must speak to TV viewers in varied forums to ready minorities and the poor for the digital transition, participants said Tuesday at an FCC workshop. Voluntary industry education efforts may have to suffice for now, given uncertainty over FCC authority to require broadcasters to air public service announcements on the transition, Commissioner Robert McDowell said in an interview. That concern has kept some commissioners from voting for a draft order by Chairman Kevin Martin that would stipulate what broadcasters and pay-TV companies have to do to educate viewers (CD Dec 4 p6).

Verizon Wireless and Leap Wireless will take part in the 700 MHz auction, according to their regulatory filings. Other wireless companies kept quiet Tuesday. Alltel declined to comment. T-Mobile, MetroPCS and Council Tree didn’t return requests for comment. Meanwhile, DirecTV and other pay-TV companies said they won’t bid. Short-form submissions that signal intent to bid were due Monday night, with the FCC due to disclose in a few weeks who filed (CD Dec 4 p5).

A digital TV order requiring broadcasters to air public- service ads has been held up on the FCC’s eighth floor because of commissioners’ concerns and many higher priorities, agency sources said. A proposed order was circulated by Chairman Kevin Martin in mid-October (CD Oct 18 p7). But at least two commissioners haven’t voted on it, the sources said.