The Tribune Co. hasn’t found a buyer for its WTXX (WB) Waterbury, Conn., station. The company is trying to sell WTXX because it has only a temporary waiver of FCC newspaper-TV cross-ownership rules. Tribune had sought to keep both the station and the Hartford Courant daily. Reporting to the FCC on the WTXX sale, Tribune said it has talked to several prospective buyers, but none has moved beyond initial conversations. The FCC granted the temporary waiver because it thought WTXX might go under if operated alone.
Notable CROSS rulings
The FCC violated its own rules by failing to give public notice on Tribune Co.’s request for a temporary waiver to retain both WTXX (WB) Waterbury, Conn., and the Hartford Courant, the Office of Communication of the United Church of Christ (UCC) said. The UCC filed a petition for reconsideration of an FCC decision to waiver newspaper-TV cross-ownership rules (CD April 15 p11). UCC claimed the FCC’s decision was “based solely on Tribune’s self-interested version of the facts.” FCC said it extended the temporary waiver because it thought WTXX was at risk of failure if it operated alone. But the UCC claimed that assumption was based on outdated information. The FCC also failed to analyze the waiver extension’s impact on diversity of viewpoints in the market. “Under longstanding precedent, the Commission could have placed the TV license in a trust while it conducted the proceedings necessary to find a new license,” UCC said.
The Fla. legislature passed an omnibus telecom bill combining 6 proposed measures into one. The bill (SB- 1322), sent to Gov. Jeb Bush (R) for his expected signature, changes the way PSC candidates are picked, tells municipalities what steps they must follow to enter the broadband market, expands availability of universal service subsidies, lets PSC members attend industry- sponsored regulatory conferences without running afoul of conflict rules, denies the PSC any regulatory authority over broadband, VoIP or wireless services, and lets telecom carriers recover hurricane damage costs from ratepayers. The bill would set up a 12-member panel of state lawmakers to screen potential candidates for a PSC vacancy and forward 3 names from which the governor will choose; if the governor doesn’t pick within 60 days, the committee could make the selection. The panel also would name the head of the state Office of Public Counsel, the state’s utility consumer advocate, and could file ethics complaints against the PSC. Municipalities wanting to get into the broadband telecom business would have to survey the market and availability of private-sector services, develop detailed business and deployment plans, and hold at least 2 public hearings on those plans before taking a vote. An election referendum would be required only if a city planned to finance the project with bonds maturing over more than 15 years. Once approved, the telecom venture would have to maintain operating and capital budgets separate from other city enterprises. The bill would bar cross-subsidy of the telecom operation from other city revenues. Municipalities would have to subject broadband unit performance to public review every 4 years and vote on whether to continue it. Universal service eligibility would be expanded to include persons earning 135% of the federal poverty line. PSC members at industry-sponsored conferences would be allowed to attend meetings and social events open to all attendees with their registration fees, and they could make use of any registration discounts offered to state commissions. The PSC would have no power to regulate broadband, VoIP or wireless services, but the bill explicitly stipulates that providers of these services would be subject to state business regulation, fair trade and consumer protection laws generally applicable to all enterprises. The PSC couldn’t impose wholesale service regulations beyond those prescribed by the FCC and Congress. Lastly, the bill would let telecom carriers recover hurricane-related damage costs through a monthly surcharge of up to 50 per line for up to 12 months, but the larger carriers would have to exhaust their storm damage budgets and spend additional amounts of between $1.5 million and $5 million, depending on carrier size.
Defiance by the FCC and the 3rd U.S. Appeals Court, Philadelphia, of judgments made by Congress in passing the Telecom Act regarding media ownership merit the U.S. Supreme Court’s attention, NAB said. In a response to the FCC’s conditional cross petition with the Supreme Court (CD March 4 p5), NAB said the high court should take the case, particularly given the contrary approach of the U.S. Appeals Court, D.C. Rules subject to NAB’s petition for writ of certiorari are already in effect and largely are unaffected by the 3rd Circuit’s remand of the FCC rules and “thus the posture of the case counsels in favor of immediate review, not against it,” NAB said. The FCC has said petitions by NAB and other broadcasters don’t warrant review. The broadcasters have argued that the First and Fifth Amendments mandate heightened judicial scrutiny of the FCC’s decision to continue to restrict broadcast station ownership.
MSV asked the FCC not to delay granting its replacement satellite application for 101 degrees W based on EchoStar’s “unprecedented and undefined” sharing proposal for the location. MSV said the Commission shouldn’t grant EchoStar a license for 101 degrees W until EchoStar has coordinated with MSV or new rules are adopted for co-channel sharing between collocated satellites. MSV said it plans to use the Ku-band frequencies for its Mobile Satellite Service, and said EchoStar’s proposal for the same frequencies won’t work without a coordination agreement that EchoStar has “never made an effort” to initiate. “EchoStar is urging the Bureau to grant its speculative application now, before an agreement has been reached, thereby imposing unprecedented uncertainty upon MSV in the development if its next-generation MSS system,” MSV said in its filing. The company suggested a rulemaking “because EchoStar’s sharing proposal potentially impacts not just MSV but all satellite operators that use feeder links,” MSV said. EchoStar suggested in an April 19 letter that if MSV were to seek to deploy a new feeder link earth station in the area of an EchoStar spot beam, then EchoStar would turn off the beam upon “due notice.” But MSV said EchoStar’s claim is too speculative, since it fails to address the threshold for interference that would require EchoStar to turn off a spot beam, how to measure that threshold, who decides when the threshold has been crossed and the process of resolution, including how much notice is required and whether EchoStar must warn customers in advance.
The broadband over power line (BPL) industry is following with interest a Tex. bill (SB-1748) that aims to provide regulatory certainty for electric utilities to deploy BPL. The bill, approved by the Senate Business & Commerce Committee, addresses many issues with which state regulators under the NARUC umbrella are wrestling: Open access, pole attachment fees, franchise fees and cross- subsidization. Regulatory clarity would help speed deployment, said Jay Birnbaum, vp of Current Technologies, one of the first BPL operators to deploy commercially in Ohio.
LAS VEGAS -- Citing the “7 deadly sins,” NBC’s American Dreams creator-producer Jonathan Prince was highly critical of the glut of reality programs on network TV. Keynoting the NAB convention here Mon., Prince said: “It’s a struggle to find viewers when networks are offering ‘housewives’ so ‘desperate’ and they're getting ‘Extreme Makeovers’ in hopes of becoming a swan. It’s a struggle when sex sells and violence sells, but family values are ridiculed as the agenda of the political right.”
The FCC late Wed. granted Tribune Co.’s request for a temporary waiver to retain both WTXX (WB) Waterbury, Conn., and the Hartford Courant through the Commission’s review of the TV station’s license renewal in April 2007. But the Commission denied a Tribune request for a permanent waiver of the media ownership rules. Tribune, which also owns WTIC (Fox) in the same market, bought the Courant in 2000, putting it in violation of FCC newspaper- TV cross-ownership rules. The U.S. Dist. Court, Hartford, ruled Tribune was in violation, ordering the firm to divest WTXX (CD March 22 p7). Tribune, which is appealing the ruling, said late Wed. it would deliver the FCC’s order to the court. The FCC said it’s extending a temporary waiver only because it sees WTXX as at risk of failure if it operates alone. The FCC also cited Tribune’s efforts to serve the public interest. “Given Tribune’s record of enhanced service to the public, and its stated plans to continue and expand such service in the future, we expect that Tribune will continue to invest in the station and expand programming and services available to viewers,” the Commission said. If Tribune doesn’t comply with the rules in effect after the extension, the Commission will have a fuller range of options available to respond, the FCC said. FCC rules are on remand from the 3rd U.S. Appeals Court, Philadelphia. Comrs. Copps and Adelstein “reluctantly” concurred with the order: “We concur because the Commission at long last conducts the public interest analysis in this case that it should have conducted years ago.” Those commissioners said they would have preferred the Commission to indicate a time limit for processing such requests, but the order “at least improves upon the current process.”
The FCC should dismiss a Media General application to renew WMBB-TV (ABC) Panama City, Fla., because that would let the firm operate a TV station and newspaper in the same market, NAACP and Free Press said. Parrying Media General opposition to a NAACP and Free Press petition for a motion to dismiss or deny Media General’s application, the group said Media General hadn’t shown FCC rules on cross-ownership of TV and newspapers harm diversity of viewpoints in a market. Instead, Media General ownership of WMBB-TV and the Jackson County Floridan “significantly” harms diversity of viewpoint in coverage of local issues, the group said. In Jan., the group petitioned to deny Media General’s request for a permanent waiver of the ownership rule (CD Jan 6 p6). Last June, the 3rd U.S. Appeals Court, Philadelphia, remanded the FCC’s major rules for newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership. Media General would like the Commission to believe the rule is unclear, the group said, but the court made clear that the ownership rule, “which has been applied clearly and consistently for nearly 30 years, still applies today.”
AT&T CEO David Dorman urged new FCC Chmn. Martin to act quickly on issues hanging over the telecom sector’s business side, including intercarrier compensation reform and the USF’s future. But Dorman, who is expected to be in the number 2 slot as president of the new company after a merger with SBC, admitted he welcomed a world in which decisions based on regulatory concerns play a far smaller role. Asked what Congress should do on a Telecom Act rewrite, he replied: “My quick answer is ‘repeal it.'”