FCC Comr. McDowell privately implored AT&T, as well as Comr. Copps and Adelstein, on Fri. to resume talks on the AT&T-BellSouth merger, sources said Mon. McDowell didn’t discuss the substance of the proceeding during those talks, but indicated he was concerned that negotiations had broken down as the parties awaited the decision that McDowell could ethically take part, which came down late Fri. (CD Dec 11 p1).

Consolidation of radio station ownership is keeping many performers from getting airplay because large companies use national, not local, playlists, musicians told the FCC media ownership hearing in Nashville. The Commission shouldn’t raise station ownership caps in new ownership rules, they said. “A handful of corporate owners have become the gatekeepers in determining airplay,” testified country artist Harold Bradley, vp-American Federation of Musicians. The 1996 Telecom Act limited musicians’ chances for “public exposure” by easing ownership limits, he said. The Commission should reduce the number of stations a company is allowed to own, said Songwriters Guild of America Pres. Rick Carnes: “Big radio is bad radio… The quality of music is inversely proportional to the size of the radio network.” Other musicians agreed and several criticized Clear Channel and other big broadcasters as pursuing profit over diversity. Commissioners face the “difficult challenge” of tweaking broadcasting rules amid surging Internet use, departing Senate Majority Leader Frist (R-Tenn.) said in audiotaped remarks. FCC Chmn. Martin acknowledged that he and his colleagues face a “difficult” rulemaking. “I recognize many of the concerns expressed” about diversity, he said: “We are still in the beginning phases of our review and of our work.”

Sen. McCain (R-Ariz.) beat Rep. DeGette (D-Colo.) to introducing a data retention bill, although his approach is drastically more limited than hers. The Stop Online Exploitation of Our Children Act, which doesn’t have a bill number yet, would limit retention to data associated with child porn reports and expand the types of Internet companies required to report. The bill got an early thumbs-up from an Internet trade group. McCain also announced plans with Sen. Schumer (D-N.Y.) to introduce legislation requiring all sex offenders to give their “active” e-mail addresses to law enforcement.

A system akin to BBC online library Creative Archive is something U.S. public TV should explore, a CPB report said. Authored by a CPB-convened working group on digital rights, the report described how Creative Archive gathers content from the BBC and other major video producers and how public TV in the U.S. could create a variation on it with partners like the Library of Congress. The archive would help further a public TV goal of maximizing public access to its content, it said.

Little is known of the newest U.S. DBS competitor, an Arlington, Va.-hq'ed firm, Spectrum 5. The privately held, Del.-incorporated company last week got FCC permission to access the U.S. DBS market from 2 Netherlands-authorized satellites, not yet built, at 114.5 degrees W -- a prime “tweener” orbital position with full U.S. coverage. Spectrum 5 formally sought U.S. market access from 114.5 degrees W in 2005, but since then Arlington-based directors David and Elizabeth Wilson, who hold 78.5% of the company, haven’t returned multiple calls from Communications Daily.

Caller ID “spoofing,” in which wrongdoers change the data displayed in a caller ID box to gain access to someone else’s personal information, is the next big threat to wireless and wireline carriers, Sprint Nextel warned Wed. during a D.C. Bar Assn. seminar on Internet and cellphone privacy.

A system akin to BBC online library Creative Archive is something U.S. public TV should explore, a CPB report said. Authored by a CPB-convened working group on digital rights, the report described how Creative Archive gathers content from the BBC and other major video producers and how public TV in the U.S. could create a variation on it with partners like the Library of Congress. The archive would help further a public TV goal of maximizing public access to its content, it said.

Caller ID “spoofing,” in which wrongdoers change the data displayed in a caller ID box -- often through Web-based tools -- to gain access to someone else’s personal information, is the next big threat to wireless and wireline carriers, Sprint Nextel warned Wed. during a D.C. Bar Assn. seminar on Internet and cellphone privacy.

The movie industry is starting to tap the “mind- boggling” array of business opportunities online, even as it battles piracy worldwide, said MPAA Chmn. Dan Glickman. Speaking Mon. at the UBS media conference in N.Y., Glickman urged telecoms, ISPs and electronics makers to help the MPAA combat intellectual property (IP) violations. “Mutual success requires cooperation,” he said.

TV programmers will take care not to alienate cable operators -- and the fat monthly affiliate fees they pay -- as they race to put more programming online, Fox Interactive Media Vp Jonathan Cody said on a panel about broadband video’s future at UBS’s media conference. “We certainly want to try new things, but we're not looking to completely bypass a 25-year partnership with cable operators just because we think we can,” Cody said: “Those [distributors] that pay us what cable and satellite do -- we're not interested in cutting them out.” That gives cable operators a huge leg up in getting online video deals, UBS analyst Aryeh Bourkoff said: “That puts Comcast at the table to play in that game.” Cable operators want to keep the role of entertainment aggregators as video programming moves online, he said. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) needs updating to foster growth in online video distribution, Bolt Media CEO Aaron Cohen said: “What we have here is a legal system that is not allowing the business models to work as well as we would like them to. The DMCA protects me very well… but the system is very badly broken.” Fixing the DMCA shouldn’t be a priority, Cody said. “We have to be realistic about where we are on the legal front,” he said: “We really need to focus much more on the technology side and the business side. There’s no reason for us not to be able to sit at tables and figure out our business and technology solutions.” Fox wants better technology to use in identifying and protecting its content on others’ websites, Cody said. Beyond that, business relationships with online distributors are needed to fill demand for Fox content on multiple platforms, he said: “When you see companies build a business on the back of your content… We clearly come at the problem a little bit with a raised eyebrow.” Advertisers are wary of placing video ads on sites with copyright infringing content, said Mark Karlan, a senior media planner for Tangible Media, a company that buys online video ads for marketers. Advertisers are “very hesitant to buy against sites and places where questionable copyrighted material may or may not be present,” he said.