The European Commission is seeking a larger oversight role for telecom, said Viviane Reding, EU Comr. for Information & Media, during a closed-door EU meeting Thurs. in Luxembourg. Meeting attendees said she indicated the EC, for example, wants the ability to veto competition rules of individual countries that don’t fully carry out EU decisions. We're told Germany, which is arguing with the EC over broadband rules for Deutsche Telekom, immediately resisted the proposal.
Notable CROSS rulings
An EU proposal to extend data protection rules to police and judicial activities is expected to win strong endorsement from the European Parliament (EP) this week. The measure aims to plug a gap in privacy protection arising from the 1995 data protection directive’s inapplicability to matters involving law enforcement and judicial cooperation. MEPs’ enthusiasm for broader privacy guarantees, however, may not be mirrored by national govts., said to be dragging their feet in negotiations.
FCC Chmn. Martin’s broad media ownership proposal doesn’t address cable ownership limits remanded to the Commission in 2001 by U.S. Appeals Court, D.C., said industry sources. The item moving on the 8th floor (CD June 1 p2) likely addresses broadcast rules, including lifting a ban on newspaper and TV station cross-ownership and boosting the number of markets where a firm can own multiple stations, they said. Broadcast rules including cross ownership were sent back to the FCC by U.S. Appeals Court, Philadelphia, in 2004.
FCC Chmn. Martin is circulating a broad media ownership item on the 8th floor that seeks to loosen restrictions, sources said. They said it probably includes lifting a ban on newspaper and TV station cross-ownership and easing cable attribution limits. Such action had been expected after Comr. McDowell starts his job (CD April 6 p9), as he is set to do within days. Martin’s aim is to get a vote on the notice of proposed rulemaking at the June 15 agenda meeting, the sources said.
The EU needs tougher data protection if member nations aim to share communications traffic data with U.S. police agencies, European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) Peter Hustinx said Fri. His comment followed a May 12 report that the U.S. wants bilateral pacts with EU nations giving it access to Internet and telephone traffic data held under a new EU data retention directive. That talks on this are underway isn’t surprising, given blurring of cross-border physical and data transfer barriers, observers said.
A Tenn. state appeals court ruled that it’s not an illegal cross subsidy for a municipal electric company to allow uncompensated use of its business name by its telecom subsidiary. The Tenn. Court of Appeals, Nashville, was ruling on an appeal filed by US LEC alleging that EPB Telecom was receiving an illegal cross subsidy from its owner, Chattanooga Electric Power Board, which conducts its electric business as EPB. US LEC argued that EPB Telecom was deriving tangible market benefits from the goodwill maintained by the power board through its EPB brand electric service that amount to the electric company subsidizing the telecom unit. The Tenn. Regulatory Authority (TRA) in 2004 denied US LEC’s original May 2002 complaint on ground that there was no subsidy as defined in state law. The state appeals court in Case M2004-01417-COA-R12-CV upheld the TRA. The court said the docket record when the TRA approved EPB Telecom’s certificate showed regulators’ main subsidy concern was preventing any shift of telecom service costs over to electric ratepayers. The court said uncompensated sharing of a brand name isn’t a subsidy so long as each unit covers its own promotional and marketing costs from its own revenues. The court said that when EPB Telecom began service, it had to promote itself and establish its market identity. The court said EPB Telecom covered its promotional costs from its own revenues. The court also said joint marketing of EPB electric service and EPB Telecom phone service wasn’t unlawful so long as each unit handled its own orders, paid its share of the marketing costs from its own revenues and the two units didn’t combine electric and phone services into a single product.
Courts likely won’t uphold recent FCC indecency rulings, contested by the 4 major networks and affiliates, veteran media attorneys and industry observers said. NBC, CBS, Fox, ABC and affiliates late last week filed actions in multiple federal courts, arguing the Commission violated the First Amendment in labeling certain broadcasts of profanity as “obscene” in a March 15 ruling (CD March 17 p1) in which it also issued a wide variety of fines.
FCC Chmn. Martin wants a vote on a broad media ownership inquiry soon after Robert McDowell’s delayed nomination gets Senate approval, said industry sources. After being rebuffed in his attempt to put a notice of proposed rulemaking on the Commission’s meeting agenda last year (CD March 20 p2), Martin wants to resuscitate the item within months of McDowell’s starting the job, said the sources. There was speculation the chairman would try to get a vote on the matter at McDowell’s first meeting, but we're told that’s now less likely. What’s unclear, according to Hill sources, is when the Senate hold on McDowell’s nomination will be lifted.
The failure of the FCC to effectively end the broadcast- newspaper cross-ownership ban “may adversely impact the quality of news and localism,” FCC Chmn. Martin said in a speech Tues. to the Newspaper Assn. of America convention in Chicago. He said newspapers’ financial struggles have led to a 4.1% drop in newspaper newsroom staffs from 2001-2005, and the last 3 FCC chmn. have said the ban should be lifted: “After more than a decade of promises to revise the rule, and significant changes in the marketplace, nothing has changed.” Martin said the FCC should issue a “neutral” notice of proposed rulemaking dealing with all the issues remanded to the Commission by the U.S. Appeals Court, Philadelphia and then decide whether to handle the ownership rules all at once or separately.
NORFOLK, Va. -- FCC Comr. Copps wants hearings on media ownership issues expected to come before the Commission, such as broadcasters’ desire to lift a ban on TV station and newspaper cross-ownership. The FCC, expected to revisit the contentious rules after a court defeat, must do better than it did under former Chmn. Powell at gathering public contributions, “evidence” and “granular analysis,” Copps told us before speaking here on a media ownership panel at Old Dominion U.