A focus on the competitiveness of the video market in recent court decisions could indicate FCC program carriage rules are in trouble, and put the Game Show Network at a disadvantage in its upcoming showdown with Cablevision in an FCC administrative law judge hearing over channel placement, said several cable attorneys in interviews. Because judges’ opinions in this month’s Time Warner Cable case (CD Sept 5 p4) and May’s Tennis Channel case (CD May 29 p1) both pointed to a cable provider’s power in the market as a factor in determining whether the FCC can compel it to carry or how to carry a channel, GSN will have to go farther to prove that not being carried on Cablevision’s basic tier harms its ability to compete, said several cable attorneys. “All of these cases are good for the cable operators,” said Cohn and Marks cable attorney Ron Siegel, not connected to any of the cases. “The market is more competitive and cable isn’t as much of a bottleneck -- if you don’t have market power, there’s no need for [program carriage] rules."

Demand for E-rate funding always outpaces supply, but the FCC could find “more than $1 billion” to direct to E-rate 2.0 by eradicating inefficiencies in the program, Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said at a Minority Media and Telecommunications Council event Friday. The agency has received more than 700 comments on proposals in its E-rate NPRM, she said.

Small cable operators continue to remain open to disruptive technologies, Aereo included, said the head of their association and a member. The streaming-video service that faces lawsuits from broadcasters over carrying their signals without paying for them holds both promise and potential threat to operators, said President Matt Polka of the American Cable Association. ACA members may have initially seen Aereo as a potential threat, “and maybe [it] still is, to some degree,” he said in a videotaped interview scheduled to be shown over the weekend on C-SPAN. As retransmission consent prices increase annually, “our members look at a company like Aereo as a company that is breaking the mold, which is really trying to provide a new technology for consumers” at “competitive prices,” Polka added.

The rulemaking notice on AM revitalization is a step in the right direction for the AM band, said broadcast engineers and consultants. Relaxing rules around daytime and nighttime community coverage rules and allowing AM stations to apply for FM translators is important, but AM stations may not have to wait very long for those translators, some broadcast industry professionals said.

A Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee introduced a bill Friday to create public interest advocates within the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The bill by Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., is one of several introduced this year, and far from the last expected. The legislative frenzy followed leaks this summer outlining in more detail how the National Security Agency collects phone metadata and other information about U.S. citizens, prompting efforts to change the system.

LAS VEGAS -- One of the biggest themes at the Competitive Carriers Association show last week was that many smaller carriers will sit out the TV incentive auction unless the FCC offers the 600 MHz spectrum in the smaller-size spectrum blocks they can more easily justify buying. But other industry officials say there appears to be little chance the FCC will embrace anything smaller than economic area (EA) licenses, such as the cellular market area (CMA) licenses the FCC sold in the B block of the 700 MHz auction. There are 734 CMAs in the U.S., taking in much smaller geographic areas than the 176 EAs.

GENEVA -- Talks on introducing a continuous timescale to stem the costly and error-prone process of inserting leap seconds are widening beyond the technical community in the hope of finding an acceptable solution before the 2015 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-15), which will decide on the matter, participants said during a two-day workshop held by the ITU and the International Bureau of Weights and Measures. The frequency and complexity of inserting leap seconds is expected to rise in the future, participants said. Currently a leap second is inserted about once every 18 months. The potential leapsecond pitfalls also appear bigger as communications and other systems grow in complexity, they said.

A Cablevision field technician from Brooklyn, N.Y., slammed Cablevision’s alleged anti-union practices Thursday before the House Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions. Several Brooklyn Cablevision workers voted to join the Communications Workers of America in January 2012, which has sparked friction and a war of rhetoric in the months since. Clarence Adams, who has worked for Cablevision for 14 years, faced difficulties, he told lawmakers.

Wireless carriers and broadcasters agreed in general on key parts of rules for the incentive auction of TV spectrum. But any semblance of amity broke down on proposed rules for spectrum in the 1695-1710 MHz, 1755-1780 MHz, 2020-2025 MHz and 2155-2180 MHz bands. CTIA and NAB lobbed shots at each other over CTIA arguments that 15 MHz of Broadcast Auxiliary Service spectrum at 2095-2110 MHz should be reallocated for wireless broadband. Under CTIA’s proposal, the band would potentially be paired for auction with 1695-1710 MHz spectrum. Comments on the July 23 NPRM were due at the FCC Wednesday evening.

A common theme throughout the hundreds of comments filed on the FCC E-rate program this week was the plea from school districts and state alliances for an increased cap in E-rate funding (CD Sept 17 p5). Some have asked for the cap to be increased from $2.25 billion to $5 billion a year or more to fully account for the typical requests by schools and libraries. Observers, however, question whether meeting such asks is politically feasible. Increasing E-rate funding at the expense of other universal service programs might not be the best course, they told us, with some pointing to contribution overhaul as a potential answer.