The FCC should reform the way it receives and processes indecency complaints, said several broadcasters, associations and other groups in replies to the commission’s public notice on proposed changes to its indecency policy and in follow-up interviews. Using a “community standard” for indecency is “inherently unreliable” when organizations “can send out an e-blast resulting in several thousand of its base submitting an electronic complaint to the FCC,” said the Writers Guild of America. A group that encourages members to file indecency complaints said otherwise. Every indecency complaint “comes from the affirmative action and efforts of an individual American citizen who enjoys full ownership of the broadcast airwaves and thus has a right to a say in how they are used,” said the Parents Television Council (PTC).

Any perceived conflicts of interest between The Washington Post’s news coverage and financial interests of Jeff Bezos, Amazon and his other investments can most readily be remedied by the soon-to-be-new-owner himself, said journalism experts we surveyed Tuesday. The day before, the Washington Post Co. agreed to sell the newspaper and some related operations to Bezos for $250 million (http://bit.ly/1985mR0). Former print and TV journalists said they're taking him at his word he'll mainly leave the operation of the newsroom to current editorial executives. That’s the best way to ensure that the views on Bezos and Amazon, of which he is CEO, on immigration legislation, intellectual property, online sales taxes and other high-technology policies don’t influence the paper’s reporting.

The White House directed the departments of Commerce, Homeland Security (DHS) and Treasury Tuesday to publish reports they had submitted to the White House in June on the feasibility of incentives to encourage industry adoption of cybersecurity practices, including the Cybersecurity Framework being developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). DHS’s recommendations track with the results of a preliminary study of cybersecurity incentives the department conducted in late May (CD July 22 p10).

EchoStar is leasing capacity from Dish Network on EchoStar-15, having moved the satellite, potentially setting the stage a direct-to-home (DTH) service in Brazil, analysts said. EchoStar-15 is expected to be operational at its new 45 degrees west slot by early fall, EchoStar officials have said.

Following an unsuccessful bid for Sprint Nextel, Dish Network has many options for use of its AWS-4 spectrum, said Chairman Charles Ergen. Merging with DirecTV or T-Mobile, or partnering with Sprint are all open, he said during a second quarter 2013 teleconference. Analysts we spoke with earlier made similar comments (CD July 30 p4). Dish lost $11 million in the quarter, vs. a $226 million profit in the same period last year. It also had fewer gross subscribers at 624,000, compared with about 665,000 from the same period the previous year, it said.

European spectrum regulators are beginning to think, albeit tentatively, about whether incentive auctions could be used to allocate 700 MHz “second digital dividend” spectrum, they said. The U.K. Office of Communications (Ofcom) appears to be out ahead, having consulted earlier this year on the potential use of incentive or “overlay” auctions for the band. The EU Radio Spectrum Policy Group (RSPG), a high-level group drawn from national spectrum authorities that advises the European Commission on spectrum policy, hasn’t addressed the issue head-on but recently published reports on spectrum for mobile broadband and long-term consideration of the future of the UHF band.

A draft rulemaking notice that could lead to elimination of the UHF TV ownership discount listed as on circulation at the FCC may partially be a reaction to a recent spate of broadcasting mergers, said broadcast attorneys in interviews Monday. They said the change in the value of UHF stations since the DTV transition also could be a reason for the FCC to nix the discount. With the Sinclair/Allbritton and Tribune/Local TV deals brushing against or even exceeding the 39 percent ownership cap without the discount, according to Free Press, the commission may be trying to eliminate the UHF discount in advance of ruling on those mergers, said Fletcher Heald broadcast attorney Peter Tannenwald.

A retransmission consent dispute between Time Warner Cable and CBS resulted in a blackout of CBS programming to TWC subscribers in the New York, Los Angeles and Dallas markets. The companies’ last agreed-upon deadline extension expired at 5 p.m. Friday (CD July 31 p15). TWC subscribers also are blocked from accessing programming online.

States can no longer take a perimeter approach to cybersecurity, and need to look at systems in terms of threat and impact, said Terrorism Research Center CEO Matt Devost, in a presentation at the National Governors Association (NGA) annual meeting Sunday. Cybersecurity needs to be managed in terms of “what systems are in use, how they are used and the vulnerability profile,” he said. Not all data are critical, and critical decisions need to be made to identify the points with the highest threat and impact to organizations, said Devost. “If you try to protect everything, you don’t protect anything at all."

Speaking in front of the P.C. Richard & Son Union Square location in New York Sunday, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., urged TV makers to beef up security in connected TVs. “The problem is that hackers can hack into your TV and watch you for whatever purpose,” Schumer said in a segment that appeared on a local CBS news report. In a news release issued Sunday, Schumer said major TV manufacturers should create a “uniform standard of security” that would be implemented in all new Internet and “video-enabled” televisions. Schumer cited smart TVs with built-in webcams, microphones and Internet access that allow viewers to access online media and make video calls.