Cable operators could encrypt all channels in their basic lineups on all-digital systems if they take steps to give customers the equipment they'd need to get the programming, under a draft FCC proposal. The Media Bureau rulemaking notice on cable encryption is meant to supplant a waiver process, commission and industry officials said Friday. They said it has not been voted on by all FCC members yet, but that approval ought to be noncontroversial.

Religion and news media have more in common than it may appear at first glance, the author of the FCC’s report on the future of the industry said as he prepares to leave the agency next week (CD Sept 27 p4). Steve Waldman said the news industry and religious leadership have both grappled with how to stay abreast of technological trends and make sure those trends don’t undermine some of their reason for existence. Both have at times wondered “how they won’t be overrun by technology,” he said in a Wednesday lecture on ethics in telecom.

Increased government efforts to shut so-called pirate radio have put a dent in the prevalence of unlicensed FM stations, industry executives and FCC officials told us. The agency has shut down 97 such stations in 2011, commission officials said. That number surprised both foes and proponents of such operations, who said the actual number of stations that have ceased all operations seems smaller. They nonetheless agree that enforcement activity has been vigorous, but still not enough to end all unauthorized radio transmissions in the U.S.

The FCC ought to examine content access hurdles faced by multichannel video programming distributors big and small, or the deals’ effect on the availability of pay-TV service and prices, said two major MVPDs and five groups representing rural telcos. If the agency is concerned about carriage of regional sports networks, it should look to all types of “must-have” sports programs, Time Warner Cable said. An agency report is due in January on access to RSNs under the 2006 commission order approving the purchase of Adelphia by Comcast and Time Warner Cable. TWC and the rural telco groups’ first-time comments on the RSN proceeding were posted to docket 11-128 Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bmenqf).

The FCC Media Bureau is keeping low-power TV stations in mind as the commission continues seeking congressional authority to voluntarily auction TV spectrum and share proceeds with licensees, bureau officials said during a Q-and-A Monday. Some current proposals would let the commission hold an auction of the spectrum of full-power stations and Class A outlets, but not LPTV stations, an official noted at an FCBA event. The bureau’s proceedings on retransmission consent and the quadrennial review of media ownership rules, last week’s program access order against Cablevision and Madison Square Garden LP and the annual survey of cable rates were other subjects industry lawyers asked about. Few definitive answers on pending proceedings were given.

It makes sense for the FCC to research the diversity of media ownership because a rule targeted at women and people of color was sent back to the agency, officials said Friday. The head of the FCC’s Office of Communications Business Opportunities and an aide to Commissioner Michael Copps said the agency may have to do more research in light of July’s remand of media ownership rules. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia sent back an eligible entity rule, and OCBO Director Thomas Reed said his office is working on the issue. Joshua Cinelli of Copps’ office said his boss hopes there will be more studies than the 11 the agency already has done for its current ownership review, with at least one on diversity.

The FCC Media Bureau said AT&T and Verizon must get access to two HD regional sports networks that carry New York teams and that used to be part of Cablevision, as expected (CD Aug 11 p6). In orders issued Thursday afternoon, the bureau granted part of the telcos’ complaint against RSN owner Madison Square Garden, part of Cablevision before it was separated last year.

All emergency alert system participants should prepare now for a new EAS format to send messages using the Internet, said FCC and Federal Emergency Management Agency officials. They said that’s true even though the FCC Friday delayed the compliance deadline for all public and private radio and TV stations, DBS and satellite radio providers and multichannel video programming distributors. Those EAS participants must now be ready by June 30 to get and send alerts in Common Alerting Protocol, which FEMA developed, the FCC Public Safety Bureau has said. Government officials said at an FCBA lunch Thursday that they're working with PBS, NPR and state emergency managers on matters including a Nov. 9 nationwide test of EAS using the current alerting standard.

Three thousand TV stations that aren’t full service upped their lobbying in Washington this week. Translator and low-power TV station executives said they want those outlets to be held harmless in any voluntary incentive auction the FCC may hold to shift broadcast spectrum to wireless broadband. They want rules changed so LPTV and translator stations can offer broadband themselves, as a secondary service to TV. There haven’t been concrete results yet from the stepped-up lobbying, which also includes the FCC, though some aides to legislators were open to parts of the proposal. The CTIA, which has attacked the efforts in the past, again criticized them. And the low-power proponents said they may not get much of what they want.

The FCC proposed that captions be as good online as shown on TV. The proposal came in a rulemaking notice implementing Internet Protocol captions under the 21st Century Communications Video and Accessibility Act. The commission took industry concerns into account in not proposing the quality be better, it said in a notice released Monday night. It asked, as expected (CD Sept 9 p7), about adopting recommendations from an FCC panel on the act, proposing to require industry to set deadlines to caption various types of IP programming along the lines of what the Video Programming Accessibility Advisory Committee sought.