Broadcasters may succeed in scaling back FCC regulation of on-air cursing and nudity when the first major indecency case in 23 years is heard by the Supreme Court on constitutional grounds, said all scholars we interviewed. The high court decided last Monday to hear the U.S. government’s consolidated case against Disney’s ABC and News Corp.’s Fox networks (CD June 28 p1). Its 7-2 ruling the same day overturning California’s law against the sale of violent videogames to kids and a 6-3 decision earlier in June against a Vermont ban on selling patients’ prescription information to drugmakers point up a recent tilt on First Amendment cases, the law professors said. They expect such an outlook to be on display in the fall 2011 term when the justices consider the indecency case, with the networks seen likely to win.

FCC decision makers met with all sides on program access complaints, as the officials ponder how to proceed after an appeals court sent some rules back to the agency for rethinking. The June 27 meeting came as the top two telcos seek action now on their 2009 complaints (CD June 22 p6), and as the cable defendants contend the agency must first pursue a rulemaking under the ruling on Cablevision v. FCC. A commission official watching the complaints against that company and its former programming unit said the agency doesn’t seem to have yet decided what to do. At the meeting, commission staffers indicated they could act on the complaints even under last month’s decision by the U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia Circuit, Cablevision recounted in its filing on the gathering in docket 07-198 (http://xrl.us/bkypff).

Cable operators soon will be required to carry independent networks once the FCC decides a complainant made an initial case in discrimination disputes, agency officials said. They said commissioners are poised to vote to approve a draft order and rulemaking on program carriage that contains such a standstill requirement. The FCC’s Democratic members have already electronically voted for the item on circulation, or said they will approve it, commission officials told us. They said Commissioner Robert McDowell may also end up voting for the order, but he hasn’t yet decided.

Some who seek to change retransmission consent rules want an FCC inquiry into what TV stations charge multichannel video programming providers, to show what they contend are rising prices in a broken system. Officials at the American Cable Association and Public Knowledge, among the 14 entities that in 2010 petitioned the agency to change how it handles retrans disputes, and MVPD SureWest said in interviews that such an inquiry will help make their case. A lawyer for TV stations which oppose changes to the rules told us the onus is on MVPDs to show costs to carry TV stations’ signals are too high. An NAB official said more government involvement isn’t needed.

The Supreme Court likely will spend much time on a landmark broadcast indecency decision, reviewing whether the FCC has constitutional authority to find that an isolated occurrence of nudity or instance of cursing is indecent, industry lawyers and professors predicted. They said the 1978 Pacifica case, where the high court found the commission can find certain swear words indecent, is likely to get more attention than the 1969 Red Lion ruling upholding broadcast regulation because of the scarcity of spectrum. That’s because in certifying for oral argument cases involving the ABC and Fox networks, the court on Monday said it will limit consideration to issues involving the First and Fifth Amendments.

Whether the start of more low-power FM stations will affect commercial radio stations operating at full power was debated in FCC filings on a coming Media Bureau study on LPFM. NAB said licensing of many more LPFMs could hurt full-power stations in the major markets that haven’t before had low-power rivals, if the upstarts have similar programming as incumbents. The study the commission was ordered by Congress to do under last year’s Local Community Radio Act ought to take future stations into account, the association said. Low-power stations and their advocates predicted the economic impact of those broadcasters will to be nonexistent or small. Filings were posted Monday and Friday in docket 11-83, on the study due to Congress Jan. 4. The agency is taking other steps to implement the legislation (CD May 3 p3), with commissioners tentatively set to vote on a rulemaking notice on the subject at the July 12 meeting.

Forthcoming products don’t undercut the need for AllVid rules so that all subscription-video providers will use open standards to connect TV sets to consumer electronics, backers of such regulation said. The AllVid Tech Company Alliance, representing major device manufacturers and retailers, last week renewed its lobbying for the FCC to propose rules. The commission’s proceeding has been effectively paused. Chairman Julius Genachowski and Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake hope to see multichannel video programming providers and CE companies reach more deals for various devices to receive Internet and cable content without CableCARDs, such as those unveiled at the Cable Show earlier this month (CD June 23 p6).

Analog broadcast TV in the U.S. will be a thing of the past in late 2015 if the FCC succeeds in setting a low-power station digital deadline akin to the full-power DTV switch two years ago, commission officials said. They said a draft order would require all remaining low-power stations that haven’t already made the digital switch to do so by September 2015. That’s three years later than the commission last proposed (CD Sept 21 p2).

The FCC has effectively paused its AllVid proceeding, holding off finishing a rulemaking notice proposing to make all multichannel video programming distributors connect to consumer electronics sold at retail, said agency and industry officials watching the work. In what represents another new approach to the proceeding, industry officials said the Media Bureau and office of Chairman Julius Genachowski seem content for now to let CE companies and pay-TV providers work out more deals to integrate programming and Internet connectivity with various devices. That new approach was on display last week at the Cable Show, in public comments from bureau Chief Bill Lake and Genachowski aide Sherrese Smith (CD June 16 p2), said CE and cable officials who heard those remarks.

Charging wireline broadband subscribers for the amount of bandwidth they consume, instead of sending all who buy a certain product the same bill each month, will become increasingly prevalent among U.S. ISPs in the coming years, executives predicted in interviews Monday. They said few cable or phone companies in this country now charge broadband customers for how many megabytes they use, and that may take some time to change. U.S. wireless carriers frequently charge customers based on usage, or impose bandwidth caps, as do wireline ISPs outside the U.S., executives said.