FCC Chairman Kevin Martin’s plan to cap the size of cable companies is gaining momentum after a long delay, with votes by two other commissioners to approve the controversial order, agency and industry sources said late Friday. Last week, Commissioners Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps voted for a proposed order to limit each cable company to 30 percent of U.S. pay-TV subscribers, two officials said. The order was first circulated on the eighth floor in March, a commission source said (CD April 11 p2).

Low-power FM stations will be able to make some important changes without potentially long waits for FCC approval, under an order approved by commissioners late Tuesday (CD Special Bulletin Nov 28 p1), said agency and industry officials. After this week’s order is published in the Federal Register, LPFM broadcasters won’t have to file nearly as much paperwork with the FCC as they must now when more than half the stations’ directors leave, they said. Stations will be able to file so-called short forms, instead of long forms, about some changes, including board turnover.

A minority media ownership order was pulled from the FCC agenda Tuesday, minutes before the meeting was first supposed to begin at 9:30 a.m. The meeting was subsequently delayed twice. The order circulated Nov. 15 by Chairman Kevin Martin approves many proposals from the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council to make it easier for women and people of color to buy radio and TV stations (CD Nov 23 p3). It also contains a controversial rulemaking notice first circulated in March on whether independent programmers should be able to lease digital TV spectrum from broadcasters to get guaranteed carriage on cable systems. “The commissioners wanted some more time to think about the minority ownership proposals,” Martin told reporters. Commissioners don’t have substantive concerns, said two other FCC officials. But some commissioners wanted more time to study the order because they didn’t get the draft three weeks before the meeting, as is customary, said a source. A jam-packed agenda also made it difficult for commissioners to have sufficient time to review the minority media order, said the sources. Free Press believes the item was yanked because the FCC has more work to do on minority ownership, said Policy Director Ben Scott: “There remain fundamental outstanding items, such as an accurate count of minority licensees and the impact of market concentration on minority ownership.”

Commissioners will vote Tuesday on whether to adopt media ownership proposals (CD July 31 p1) by the Minority Media & Telecommunications Council and others to help people of color buy TV and radio stations, two FCC officials said. They said an order that FCC Chairman Kevin Martin circulated Nov. 15 would approve many of the minority ownership plans and deny or seek additional comment on others. The order and a related further-rulemaking notice deal with 34 minority ownership proposals the commission sought public comment on Aug. 2 in its media ownership review, FCC officials said.

The FCC has reason to decide that cable operators have passed a threshold beyond which the agency can subject them to additional rules, three consumer and public-interest groups wrote Friday in a letter to Chairman Kevin Martin. The groups agreed with an FCC filing last week in which the Media Access Project (CD Nov 19 p11) said more than 70 percent of homes served by systems with 36 or more channels subscribe to cable. That filing said homes-passed and subscriber data from the Televison & Cable Factbook, published by Warren Communications News (which publishes Communications Daily), were used correctly by the FCC to find 71.4 percent penetration. Free Press, the Consumer Federation of America and Consumers Union said they used different data but still found the 70/70 levels exceeded. Meanwhile, Rainbow Push Coalition President Jesse Jackson Sr. called it “deeply disturbing” that the FCC is “considering using an antiquated legal rule to advance what is widely seen by civil rights leaders as an anti-diversity agenda.” Jackson seems concerned that a determination that the 70 percent subscriber level was exceeded could be used by the FCC to make cable operators sell channels individually. “There is virtually no political support from either progressives or conservatives for such pet policies as a la carte pricing,” Jackson said in a news release. Martin said last week that he hasn’t asked other commissioners to vote on a la carte rules. Jackson didn’t comment at the request of the cable industry or anyone else, said Kimberly Marcus, executive director of Rainbow Push’s Public Policy Institute. “We think this is another way to keep minority owners from breaking into the industry,” she said. “The reverend has been speaking out on this topic for a couple of years.”

Most commissioners are skeptical of data in a coming FCC report on video competition showing that cable operators have passed a threshold that would subject them to more regulation, said agency sources. They said at least three commissioners fear there may be too many qualifiers on data showing more than 70 percent of homes passed by cable systems subscribe to the service for the FCC to rely on them. Save for Chairman Kevin Martin, all will give close scrutiny to the report, said another source.

The cable industry will come in for heavy scrutiny at the Nov. 27 FCC meeting. Chairman Kevin Martin asked the other commissioners to vote on a 2006 video competition report to Congress that relies on controversial statistics to make a case that the cable industry needs more regulation, two agency officials said. They said Martin asked his colleagues to vote on an order that would slash the fees cable operators can charge independent programmers for channel capacity leases, and approve a notice of inquiry for the 2007 competition report.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin appeared to scale back media ownership deregulation plans in the face of criticism from members of Congress, agency and industry officials said. His plan announced Tuesday would get rid of a 32-year-old FCC ban preventing a company from owning both a newspaper and a broadcast property in a city. But instead of killing the ban entirely, Martin’s plan would end it in the 20 largest U.S. markets. Just under half of Americans live in those markets, according to Nielsen.

The FCC should suspend its review of Tribune’s $8.2 billion sale because the company twice violated the commission’s ex-parte rules, said a filing by the United Church of Christ and the Media Alliance. Tribune wants to sell itself to employees and real-estate billionaire Sam Zell. The groups said a Tribune executive met Sept. 17 with aides to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin and Oct. 10 with an adviser to Commissioner Michael Copps. An ex-parte filing on the meetings didn’t appear in docket 07-119 until about Thursday. Martin hasn’t circulated an order on approving the sale and on waivers Tribune requested, an FCC official said.

The Progress & Freedom Foundation ended a months-long search for a president by hiring Ken Ferree, who began the job Wednesday. The last president of the media and telecommunications think tank held the job for less than a year, and the interim president resigned in September (CD Sept 25 p1). Ferree said he aims to bring stability to the organization, increase fundraising and possibly find new members. He was the FCC’s Media Bureau chief under Chairman Michael Powell, and last worked as a partner at Sheppard Mullin. “There is nothing wrong here that can’t be fixed with a good kick-start,” he said in an interview. “We certainly want to be more active in the areas where PFF has traditionally worked.” The foundation is considering expanding its full-time staff of about a dozen, said Ferree. “We are talking to at least a couple of other folks.” He declined to name the candidates or describe the positions the group seeks to fill. Ferree, who moved to California after leaving Sheppard Mullin, will live there and in Virginia.