As interim chair of the FCC, Commissioner Mignon Clyburn would likely take on a number of issues, starting with her big issue of late, prison calling, FCC and industry officials said last week. Another big issue for Clyburn has been 700 MHz interoperability, but how much she would be able to do on that with a 2-1 commission is unclear. A former top FCC official said Clyburn’s staff should already be looking around for a few issues on which she can make her mark as the first woman to head the agency.
Notable CROSS rulings
Broadband is the fastest-growing segment of Comcast’s business, but innovation will change Comcast’s traditional cable base “more in the next five years than it has in the past 50,” Comcast CEO Brian Roberts told the Washington Economic Club Thursday. When Microsoft invested $1 billion in Comcast in 1997, Roberts said Bill Gates told him then that Comcast’s business would expand far beyond delivering TV service. That prediction has held true, Roberts said. Comcast has about 22 million video customers and 20 million broadband customers, he said. “Those lines will cross some time in the next couple of years and we will have just as many -- if not more -- broadband customers than we have video customers,” he said. Comcast faces a “different broadband every year,” he said. “We change the speeds, the nature of it, so Wi-Fi is now … part of our definition of broadband. So we want to have the fastest Wi-Fi as well as the fastest pipe. We want to offer you access outside of your home."
The FCC told lawmakers that it’s dedicated to a data-driven process to shape policies in its media ownership proceeding. The commission expects the process to shape policies that also promote ownership diversity and enable robust local news broadcasts for all communities, its Office of Legislative Affairs said in letters this week. Last year, Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., Reps. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., Jose Serrano, D-N.Y., Michael Doyle, D-Pa., and other lawmakers expressed their concern, in separate letters, about the impact that proposed cross-ownership rules could have on local and diverse programming. Those letters were posted in the docket this week. Given New Jersey’s unfortunate experience with media consolidation, “I am particularly disappointed to learn that the FCC is considering modifying its media ownership rules to the benefit of major media companies and to the detriment of local news coverage,” said Lautenberg (http://bit.ly/XuwAft). Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., urged the FCC to have a public vote on the media ownership report and order at its next open meeting: “You will have the opportunity to publicly explain your rationale for the weakening of the existing media cross-ownership rule and other elements of the report and order” (http://bit.ly/Y9X1om).
Several Senate Commerce Committee members want Congress to modernize rules that govern the communications market. From federal E-rate polices, to video regulations, lawmakers at Tuesday’s FCC oversight hearing said it’s time to take a hard look at what should be done to modernize the 20th century rules that govern the market now.
The operator of a trans-Pacific submarine cable is trying to stop or move a pilot tidal energy project at the mouth of Puget Sound in Washington state. Pacific Crossing and the association that represents undersea cable operators are pushing the FCC and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to come up with a set of guidelines for how close oceanic energy projects can be to their cables. FERC is set to rule on a proposed permit for a pilot tidal energy project in Admiralty Inlet, a project that’s been funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and is being managed by the Snohomish County Public Utility District (PUD) in Admiralty Inlet. Pacific Crossing worries the project is too close to its PC-1 cable connecting the U.S. to Japan, and could inadvertently damage its cable or impair its ability to maintain and repair it.
Two of three judges asked skeptical questions of WealthTV’s lawyer, in the independent programmer’s attempt (CD March 13 p5) to get the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn an FCC denial of the indie’s program carriage complaint against four cable operators. At the oral argument Thursday in Pasadena, Calif., Judge Paul Watford asked almost all the questions of attorneys for WealthTV, the commission and the four operators. He also homed in on the FCC’s lawyer over whether there was a violation when the FCC administrative law judge, whose recommendation against the indie’s case was upheld by the full commission in 2011, didn’t consider some testimony as evidence.
State and local support for prison phone rate reform remains strong, Public Knowledge and other public interest groups told aides to Chairman Julius Genachowski and Commissioner Mignon Clyburn Monday, an ex parte filing said (http://bit.ly/Zxr2fZ). Continued FCC leadership has “the salutary effect of mobilizing supports at all levels of government,” the groups said, urging the commission to move quickly to “alleviate the unjust” carrier practices. The commission has authority under sections 201 and 202 of the Communications Act to prohibit carriers from paying commissions to prison officials, the groups said. “Such a prohibition no more treads on federalism or intrastate communications than the prohibition on exclusive contracts with landlords trammels on the rights of landlords, or the newspaper broadcast cross-ownership rule treads on the rights of newspapers."
Free Press cautioned against using a forthcoming study from the Minority Media & Telecom Council on media cross-ownership to help inform rule changes affecting women and minority owners. The FCC delayed the media ownership proceeding to give MMTC time to do the study (CD Feb 27 p1). MMTC commissioned BIA Kelsey to do the study. Free Press also said a study endorsed by the broadcast and newspaper lobbies, and carried out by an analyst who has expressed support for weakening such rules, “cannot be substituted for independent research and agency action,” Free Press said in an ex parte filing in docket 07-294 (http://bit.ly/Vw5T7Z). “Due to our understanding of this qualitative study’s methodology, we have serious concerns about its ability to provide the sort of analysis required of the commission by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in the Prometheus II decision.” The filing recounted a phone conversation with Matt Wood, Free Press policy director, and David Grimaldi, media aide to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn.
Common Cause doesn’t like the prospect of the FCC relying on an outside group’s study of the impact of a draft order’s media ownership rule changes on minorities and women. The agency Tuesday paused a proceeding on some cross-ownership deregulation pending the study by BIA/Kelsey paid for by the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council (CD Feb 27 p1). The FCC “should take the time necessary to conduct careful, independent research on how proposals to relax its rules on media consolidation would impact levels of broadcast ownership by women, African-Americans and other minorities,” Common Cause said in a news release Wednesday. Common Cause Special Adviser Michael Copps, a former FCC member who is an opponent of media mergers and acquisitions, is “troubled by the process” the commission is following, he said. BIA/Kelsey “has longstanding ties to the industry,” Copps said of the broadcast research firm. “The FCC itself should be driving the research process, setting the parameters and teeing up the questions needed to satisfy anti-discrimination requirements set by the courts and guarantee an independent and data-driven outcome.” But it’s MMTC, not broadcasters, that’s paying for the study, the council’s executive director, David Honig, told us of the concerns of groups opposing media M&A.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski paused the media ownership proceeding to give the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council time to study the impact of waivers allowing common ownership of stations and daily newspapers on minority and women-owned broadcasters. The delay had been expected (CD Feb 21 p5) and shortly after NAB and the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) backed MMTC’s plan to spend its own money on the research. Other FCC members and broadcasters generally support the delay in voting on rules first circulated Nov. 14, agency and industry officials told us, and commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Robert McDowell said they backed the delay.