TiVo got an FCC waiver to sell all-digital DVR devices that can’t get analog cable channels or analog broadcasts. The conditional waiver was issued by the Media Bureau Wednesday afternoon, citing cost reduction and power consumption as benefits. The company was required to include post-sale materials on some of the new products’ limitations, including that traditional set-tops still may be needed to get all the pay-TV companies’ services. TiVo had sought speedy approval of the waiver, which it got, to begin selling the device in time for the holiday shopping season for consumer electronics (CD June 9 p12).

The FCC has one more rulemaking to issue on putting into place new low-power FM rules from legislation last year that paved the way for the licensing of many more LPFMs, agency and industry officials said. They said the Media Bureau will circulate for a vote a rulemaking notice to implement the rest of the Local Community Radio Act. The forthcoming notice, which may not be finished yet and ready to circulate, is expected to deal with the technical details of licensing new LPFM stations that are closer to frequencies used by existing full-power FM broadcasters than the commission had permitted. Comments, meanwhile, came in to dockets 99-25 and 07-712 on another rulemaking implementing other parts of the act, including from members of the House and Senate who are proponents of LPFM.

Google’s recent accord to buy Motorola Mobility hasn’t changed the stances of fans and foes of the AllVid rules the FCC is seeking. The $12.5 billion purchase plan could represent a type of integration achieved by acquisition that some hope AllVid rules will spur widely in the consumer electronics and multichannel video programming distributor industries, executives on both sides of the debate acknowledged in interviews. They contend the deal doesn’t alter the equation for whether regulation is or isn’t needed -- because of what’s happening in the rest of the CE-MVPD market. That might change much later though if Google keeps Motorola’s set-top business or if the two companies are run by the same managers, executives on both sides of AllVid said.

The second-largest TV station blackout of 2011 on a multichannel video programming distributor spurred the cable company’s CEO to send a critical letter to the FCC chairman. Mediacom’s Rocco Commisso said Julius Genachowski isn’t living up to promises to protect consumers, in not issuing new retransmission consent and a la carte rules. No retrans order is poised to circulate, FCC officials said, and one may not be ready this year (CD Aug 5 p2). Wednesday evening, Mediacom subscribers could no longer see seven LIN Media stations in small- and mid-sized markets. A commission spokesman declined to comment.

Comcast and Bloomberg show no sign of ending an impasse over what channel positions the cable operator carries Bloomberg TV on its systems. Both sides seem dug in on their stances about whether Comcast needs to put the financial news channel near clusterings of other similar networks in its channel lineups, according to interviews with an FCC official and a Bloomberg executive and recent filings from both companies.

Positions vacated at the Media Access Project this year that haven’t all been filled keep the group challenged to stay active on a wide array of communications policy issues, current and former staffers said. They agreed it’s a bad time for MAP to be missing a CEO and an associate director. It has a new public relations and fund raising staffer, as of this month, replacing one who left to work for House Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif. Senior Vice President Andrew Schwartzman said he hopes to fill the other vacancies in 2011.

Upcoming rules on video descriptions likely will upset either industry or advocates for the blind. Agency officials said some FCC members are eying changes to a draft order, which hasn’t yet been modified. The order brings back a requirement that TV stations and multichannel video programming providers pass through at least 50 hours a quarter of audio descriptions of scenes lacking dialog (CD Aug 12 p4). Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Michael Copps are among those considering moving to earlier in 2012 the proposed October 2012 date for compliance, agency officials said. That goes against what cable programmers and operators and broadcasters want. Advocates for those who can’t see well, meanwhile, said they're upset with the current version of the Media Bureau order.

The cable industry has more questions than answers on what Google-Motorola Mobility means for tens of millions of Motorola set-top boxes used by North American TV subscribers. Cable executives said their companies were caught off guard by Monday’s $12.5 billion agreement (CD Aug 16 p1) for Google to buy Motorola Mobility. There’s some hope among operators and their suppliers that the deal could lead to a wider array of new products that subscribers can use at home, interviews this week found. With Google seeming more focused on Motorola Mobility’s thousands of patents and the cellphone business, executives and analysts said set-tops may now be more of an afterthought for the combining companies.

A second cable operator may get an FCC waiver to encrypt all channels. RCN now wants (CD Aug 16 p13) to follow Cablevision’s lead and be able to turn on and off service remotely, cutting down on signal theft and the expense and pollution of sending out technicians. Commission approval of RCN’s new request seems likely, and there will probably be less opposition to the move expressed than Cablevision faced in 2009, industry lawyers and an analyst said in interviews Tuesday. They said the regulator seems unlikely to start a rulemaking to examine whether it’s worth keeping a ban on operators encrypting channels in the basic tier. RCN wants out of that ban in Chicago and New York, where it’s gone all-digital.

Government officials and industry executives are seeking technical and coordination improvements to the emergency alert system so that the first-ever nationwide test of EAS is smooth. Officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FCC and state emergency agencies spoke on a webinar Monday organized by FEMA. “Are You Ready for the Nationwide Emergency Alert System Test” was its title. Government officials and executives from the broadcasting and cable industries said they're making progress on improvements from earlier smaller-scale tests, and that some issues remain. And Chief Jamie Barnett of the FCC Public Safety Bureau said in a separate message to broadcasters that there will be more, “periodic” nationwide EAS tests.