It could cost millions of dollars for TV stations to start putting just part of their public-inspection files online, the NAB told the FCC. It estimated that putting existing political ad files online could cost $15 million, and said making electronic other parts of the files would cost even more in employee time and other expenses. But nonprofits told the FCC and the Office of Management and Budget that the costs will be limited. OMB will consider the paperwork burdens of the regulator’s proposal to require all TV stations to put the files online through a commission-hosted website.

The FCC has denied the most ambitious multicasting must-carry proposal (CD Dec 31/08 p3). The Media Bureau said the petition to start a new TV network targeting urban, African-American audiences won’t fly. Using Urban TV as a multicast broadcast signal that would be guaranteed pay-TV carriage doesn’t comport with existing rules, Video Division Chief Barbara Kreisman of the Media Bureau wrote Ion Media and billionaire Robert Johnson’s company. Urban TV’s proposal to “separate a multicast DTV channel currently controlled by ION and establish a new license for each programming stream” isn’t “consistent with our licensing rules,” Kreisman wrote.

Comcast criticized an FCC staff decision and an administrative law judge, who each ruled against the cable operator in its programming dispute with an independent channel. The full commission should overturn the 2010 Media Bureau order that sent the Tennis Channel’s program carriage complaint to the ALJ in the first place, Comcast said. And it asked the commission to find differently than a December order which said the cable operator violated program carriage rules.

The FCC may not deviate much in eventual draft media ownership rules from what the agency proposed last month (CD Dec 23 p1), fans and foes of broadcaster consolidation predicted. Chairman Julius Genachowski likely won’t circulate any draft quadrennial review order until late this year or early next, said industry, nonprofit group and commission officials. They said it appears Genachowski has an open mind on what final rules he'll seek, and the comment cycle on the rulemaking ends April 3. He seems inclined to stick closely to December’s rulemaking notice, which strikes a balance of sorts between what industry and nonprofits want, officials said.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski worries that U.S. appeals courts sometimes interpret statutes too narrowly in reviewing federal agency decisions. Hopeful his agency will prevail in a challenge to net neutrality rules before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, he voiced concerns that courts generally aren’t giving agencies enough leeway to interpret legislation. That trend is “making it more and more difficult for agencies in fast-moving areas to respond to changes in technology or changes in the marketplace,” Genachowski said Wednesday during a Q-and-A with Jeffrey Rosen of The New Republic. Genachowski said he gets the rationale behind court decisions that say an agency overreached.

More consumer electronics are subject to new FCC requirements to display online captions from content originally broadcast on TV or seen on cable, DBS or telco-TV than industry executives expected. They said the order (CD Jan 17 p3) requiring TV stations and multichannel video programming distributors to caption video they put online appears to go beyond what’s required by 2010 disabilities legislation. The order said the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act didn’t say in great detail what type of CE equipment must be covered by Internet Protocol captioning rules.

The FCC didn’t back down from First Amendment concerns expressed by video programming owners that VPOs should have no or little role in ensuring broadcast-TV and subscription video is captioned when put online. Such concerns expressed by VPOs led Commissioner Robert McDowell to concur with the rules implementing the Internet Protocol captioning rules in the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act. Commissioner Mignon Clyburn cited the “marketplace of ideas embodied in the First Amendment” as reason to let those with hearing problems know what’s happening on-screen, online. The final order released Friday afternoon had few changes from the first draft that circulated for a vote the last work day before Christmas. That conformed with expectations (CD Jan 6 p4).

First Amendment aspects of extending program carriage regulations to more types of multichannel video programming distributors, and online video distributors’ (OVD) access to cable content, were debated by MVPDs and their allies opposing changes and rule-change backers. The FCC has proposed to extend program carriage rules to more types of MVPDs, so pay-TV companies can be found to have discriminated in favor of content affiliated with other subscription-video providers over independent networks. Nonprofits cited the entry of OVDs into the market as reason to extend the rules. Comcast and its main association said competition is plentiful.

The FCC is close to adopting rules for TV shows to be captioned online. An Internet Protocol captioning order that circulated the last work day before Christmas is likely to be approved by commissioners by Thursday, and perhaps issued that day, too. This week some on the eighth floor and in the Media Bureau, which drafted the IP order, are grappling with whether to make changes after lobbying by the pay-TV and consumer electronics industries and advocates for those with problems hearing, according to commission and industry officials.

The FCC won’t require emergency alert service participants without broadband access to get and pass onto viewers and listeners EAS alerts in a new format that’s been developed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. A commission order released Wednesday set rules for broadcast radio and TV, satellite radio and DBS, and cable and telco-TV equipment to be certified as complying with the new Common Alerting Protocol (CAP).