The FCC should afford broadcasters more latitude when it comes to indecency enforcement, and focus on holding networks accountable for programming they supply to affiliates and on setting clearer guidelines for broadcasters to follow, TV station general managers and others said. With the Supreme Court’s rejection last month of indecency censures against Disney’s ABC and News Corp.’s Fox (CD June 22 p1), the onus returns to the agency to articulate what is actionably indecent. While much of the debate has focused on content, the question of how much responsibility should be borne by the affiliates should also be considered, said Bill Lamb, president of Block Communications’ WDRB-TV and WMYO-TV in Louisville, Ky.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski will circulate an order terminating all 20 of the existing waivers allowing early build out of public safety networks in the 700 MHz band, an FCC official said late Thursday. The waivers were already scheduled to expire Sept. 2. The draft order also rejects the 36 waiver requests from other jurisdictions now before the agency. However, it allows the Public Safety Bureau, on delegated authority, to allow systems such as Charlotte, N.C., and Harris County, Texas, that had started construction to reapply for special temporary authorizations (STAs) to continue construction of their systems if they so choose. The order also approves, until Sept. 2, the interoperability showings for Charlotte and Harris County.

An arbitrator ruled in favor of startup online video provider Project Concord (PCI) in a dispute over terms of carrying some NBCUniversal programming online, documents filed with the FCC show (http://xrl.us/bngn5q). The company, which has yet to introduce its service, said in February it was having trouble accessing some NBCU programming under the online video distributor (OVD) condition of the Comcast-NBCU merger order (CD Feb 27 p5). An arbitrator found that Project Concord’s final offer “most closely approximates the fair market value of the programming carriage rights at issue.” But the arbitrator stopped short of finding that Comcast and NBCU acted unethically or deployed improper tactics in the dispute.

Viacom removed the online versions of its shows that are available to all Internet users amid a dispute over how much DirecTV will pay the cable programmer for its networks. MTV, BET and Nickelodeon were blacked out for DirecTV subscribers starting late Tuesday after an agreement wasn’t reached between the two companies (CD July 12 p10). After DirecTV informed customers that they could access the content online, Viacom cut off access to streaming content from these networks. Viacom blocked “not only DirecTV customers but also everyone else from seeing ‘The Daily Show’ … and other hits Viacom had always made available online for free,” DirecTV said Thursday.

Hundreds of privacy experts began to form an early consensus around mobile privacy guidelines Thursday during the first NTIA privacy multi-stakeholder meeting in Washington. Generally stakeholders focused on the principles of transparency and standardization in the mobile environment while urging a technologically neutral privacy solution that can be eventually codified into law. Though the event ended with few conclusive results, John Verdi, NTIA’s director of privacy initiatives, said the agency will likely host a subsequent multistakeholder meeting in August.

A Republican member of the Federal Election Commission warned media executives they face loss of an exemption the media industry has for some political disclosures. Donald McGahn said career FEC staff have a natural and nonpartisan proclivity to read a broad mandate into Supreme Court rulings like Citizens United in 2010 and legislation like 2002’s Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. Combined with the three Democratic commissioners who tend to be more regulatory on the six-member agency that’s evenly split among party lines, he told a Media Institute luncheon that the media’s exemption to certain limits on what constitutes impermissible political communications may be peeled away. He said the agency’s approach of not only “belt and suspenders but duct tape and everything else” mooted the practical effect of OK'ing political contributions by text message (CD July 10 p9).

The California LifeLine program will be changing, as the California Public Utilities Commission voted 5-0 Thursday afternoon in favor of Resolution T-17366. The resolution adjusts how California runs its LifeLine program, with many of the changes implemented to comply with the FCC’s Lifeline reform order issued earlier this year (http://xrl.us/bngnwe). California LifeLine customers will, according to the resolution draft (http://xrl.us/bngn2c), now be required to provide supporting documentation and have slightly different eligibility requirements, but the commission also opened a discussion for how to reform LifeLine in a way that would embrace 21st-century technology both in the process of applications and in the telecommunications devices covered.

Failure to reauthorize the U.S. SAFE WEB Act of 2006 would have severe, negative implications for Internet commerce, Rep. Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif., warned Thursday during a hearing of the House Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade, which she chairs. Mack said she will introduce legislation this week reauthorizing the act for another seven years. Without action, the act is set to expire Dec. 22, 2013. An FTC official also urged Congress to reauthorize the law.

TV broadcasters and some program suppliers asked a federal appeals court to review a lower court’s decision that will let Aereo continue offering its services while its legality is litigated, a court filing shows. WNET, Fox TV stations, Twentieth Century Fox, WPIX, Univision and PBS said they appealed U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan’s ruling denying their motion for an injunction and called Nathan’s decision “a loss for the entire creative community.” Comcast’s NBCUniversal also said it plans to appeal the ruling. “Importantly, the court determined that Aereo’s business is irreparably harming broadcasters and content creators,” a spokesman for NBCU said. The decision “represents only a preliminary finding and we remain confident that the courts will ultimately find in our favor and block Aereo from infringing our copyrighted broadcasts."

EU Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes issued a policy statement Thursday on broadband investment in high-speed pipes. She outlined the conclusions of an extensive debate on the role of regulation in promoting competition and investment, and the regulations she’s planning. Network and cable operators backed the proposals, but alternative telcos accused Kroes of turning her back on them.