The Department of Justice made a second request for information on the $1.5 billion Gannett/Belo merger, the companies said in a news release Friday. A Department of Justice spokesman said DOJ would not confirm that a second request had been made but said it was “reviewing the transaction.” DOJ wouldn’t comment on the specifics of the request, but public interest groups, the ACA, Time Warner Cable and DirecTV have filed petitions targeting sharing agreements connected with the merger as violating FCC ownership rules and antitrust laws. A second request is “a standard part of the DOJ review process,” said Gannett and Belo in their release. Though such requests are “not infrequent” in large mergers, they do delay a transaction’s completion and add expense, said a broadcast attorney with a connection to the matter. Second requests also indicate that some portion of a transaction raised enough questions with a federal agency to spark further review, the attorney pointed out. Gannett and Belo may not close the transaction until 30 days after they have “substantially complied” with the request or the waiting period is otherwise terminated by the DOJ, said the release. Gannett and Belo said they will “respond promptly” to the second request and that they expect to close the transaction by the end of 2013. The merger also is awaiting FCC approval.

The U.S. Export-Import Bank authorized a $105.4 million loan to Israel-based Space Communication to finance the SpaceX launch of the Amos-6 satellite. Amos-6 will replace Amos-2 and cover markets in Central and Eastern Europe and the Middle East, Ex-Im said in a press release. It also will provide “pan-European coverage and broadband services in Europe and Africa,” it said. The launch is scheduled for 2015, it said. The loan also will support the purchase of American-made solar arrays and insurance brokered by Marsh USA, Ex-Im said.

The FCC Media Bureau denied six applications for new low-power FM stations. It denied the application of Dillingham Christian Radio due to its failure to respond to a deficiency letter it received in 2001, it said in a memorandum opinion and order (http://bit.ly/17Qx5jS). “While we do not doubt that the community of Dillingham, Alaska, could benefit from a new community radio service, DCR’s inability to offer such services is attributable solely to its own inaction.” Despite certifying in applications that they were non-stock, not-for-profit corporations, Esperanza Adventist Educational Radio in Florida and Springdale Adventist Educational Station in Arkansas “were not incorporated at the time they filed their applications,” the order said. The bureau also rescinded its approval of Montmorenci United Methodist Church’s application and denied an application from Mount Pisgah Adventist Educational Media, both in North Carolina, because they weren’t incorporated when their applications were filed, it said. The commission also dismissed an application from Rock n’ Roll Preservation Society in California for not demonstrating reasonable assurance of the availability of its proposed transmitter site, it said.

The Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable (DTC) issued proposed requirements Thursday for implementing the FCC’s Lifeline program in the state (http://1.usa.gov/1f7GXsa). The FCC’s Lifeline order in February 2012 imposed new requirements for eligible telecommunications carriers (ETCs) and outlined specific instances of states’ authority to implement the requirements, said the DTC. Based on public hearings and comments from interested parties in May, the DTC proposed Massachusetts ETCs do not assess or collect a monthly fee from subscribers who are terminated for non-usage. Each ETC should file annually the number of complaints related to the Lifeline program during the previous calendar year for every 1,000 Lifeline subscribers in Massachusetts, the DTC proposed. The DTC will not require ETCs to report the amount of Universal Service Fund support received for Massachusetts Lifeline subscribers each month on a quarterly basis because T-Mobile and Verizon said in comments such receipts would provide “little or no value” to the DTC. All newly designated ETCs should file the rates, terms, marketing materials and conditions of their Lifeline offerings in Massachusetts within 60 days of designation and prior to offering Lifeline services in Massachusetts, the DTC proposed. In good faith, all wireless ETCs should participate in the DTC’s dispute resolution process to resolve Lifeline subscriber disputes, the DTC proposed. Public safety answering points’ self-certification will be provided only to non-facilities-based ETCs annually, despite Your Tel’s concerns that this requirement would be burdensome, the DTC proposed. The DTC said it will not propose requiring that each ETC submit annual statements that it meets the compliance agreements established by Lifeline and it will not require ETCs to report on compliance with the state’s 911 and E911 obligations. The DTC did not propose to impose requirements for ETCs to require a basic voice option, a return policy for refurbished phones, some customer service resources and the same services and benefits for ETCs that have offers in other jurisdictions. Comments on the proposed requirements are due Sept. 18, reply comments Oct. 2 to DTC Secretary Catrice Williams with the subject line “D.T.C 13-4 Lifeline Investigation."

The provisions in the Department of Justice’s proposed remedy in the Apple e-book case are necessary to keep Apple from engaging in anti-competitive behavior, which the court found the company guilty of last month (CED July 11 p1), the DOJ wrote in filings Friday to the U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Preventing Apple from entering similar, price-fixing agreements in other content markets “is both necessary and prudent to prevent future violations of the antitrust laws,” DOJ said. To return to the conditions of the pre-collusion e-book market, Apple should have to offer competitors “a costless means for readers to purchase e-books from” retailers including Barnes & Noble and Amazon, by allowing competitors to include hyperlinks to their bookstores within apps, DOJ said. Finally, Apple needs an independent compliance officer, as “Apple’s in-house enforcement program will be insufficient to change the corporate culture,” which is a “culture of insensitivity to basic tenets of antitrust law,” the DOJ said.

LightSquared intervened in the lawsuit filed by its largest investor against Dish Network Chairman Charlie Ergen and Dish Network Corp. for allegations of a fraudulent scheme to become the biggest lender for LightSquared. LightSquared intervened as a plaintiff against Ergen’s Sound Point, seeking declaratory relief “on whether the issue of whether the Sound Point defendants’ purchase of LightSquared’s debt was in compliance with the credit agreement,” the complaint said. The complaint was filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. The wholesale satellite capacity company intervened “to ensure that these claims are fully and efficiently resolved,” it said. LightSquared “reserves the right to seek any appropriate remedy following resolution of the requested declaratory relief,” it said. Harbinger Capital Partners filed the initial complaint this month and seeks damages, including $2 billion in compensation and $2 billion in punitive damages, a separate complaint said. Harbinger also filed a $1.9 billion lawsuit against members of the GPS industry on charges that they didn’t disclose potential interference concerns between LightSquared spectrum and GPS equipment (CD Aug 21 p22). Harbinger and its CEO Phil Falcone agreed to an $18 million settlement with the SEC on charges of illicit conduct (CD Aug 21 p22). Dish had no comment on the lawsuit.

The White House is “actively working on” the list of members of the surveillance review panel, Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters Friday in Binghamton, N.Y. “I don’t want to set a timeline for that now because I don’t know when they're going to be done, but it’s something that they're actively working on.” He called the panel “an important part” of the reforms President Barack Obama pledged earlier this month, intended to make U.S. surveillance activities more transparent and give them more oversight. ABC News reported four unconfirmed names expected to be named to the panel Thursday, which prompted criticism from observers that the group may be too full of White House insiders (CD Aug 23 p6). A White House spokeswoman told us Thursday the list would be released “soon.” The group will offer the president surveillance reform recommendations, first within 60 days of its creation and then by Dec. 15.

NARUC’s website and telephone service were down for about 30 minutes Friday due to a problem with the vendor, a spokesman told us. He posted on Twitter to let members know if they were trying to reach NARUC, but he said it was “no big deal."

Several more industry groups backed the push for patent reform in statements Thursday, following a GAO report on the issue of patent assertion entities (CD Aug 23 p9). The Coalition for Patent Fairness said it wants Congress to “dry up the financial incentives that have allowed patent trolls to thrive and multiply; end costly and abusive discovery fishing expeditions; and increase transparency, so patent trolls can’t hide behind shell companies and non-operating corporations to avoid accountability” (http://bit.ly/16DENyX). BSA The Software Alliance said “efforts to improve the patent system, as the GAO Report correctly concludes, should focus on increasing patent quality across the board.” BSA Government Affairs Director Tim Molino also said in a statement (http://bit.ly/16DEXq1): “BSA also supports legislative initiatives aimed at directly addressing imbalances in the economic incentives for non-practicing entities and their targets. Those asymmetries create the conditions for quick, profitable and sometimes unwarranted settlements.”

The FCC shouldn’t mandate what specific functions in a device should be accessible in its implementation of rules from the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA) governing user interfaces and programming guides, said Dish and EchoStar in a joint ex parte filing Thursday (http://bit.ly/18MWUlZ). “It is not necessary for the Commission to mandate any particular functions in order to ensure baseline accessibility,” said Dish and EchoStar. CEA and consumer groups representing the vision-impaired recommended earlier this week that the commission require manufacturers to make accessible all 11 “essential functions” from a list created by the Video Programming Accessibility Advisory Committee (CD Aug 20 p15). If the FCC follows that recommendation, it should clarify that the accessibility requirements will apply only for functions on the list that are “native” to the device, said the joint filing. The DBS providers also want power functions and volume buttons excluded from the list, along with “Configuration -- Setup” and “Display Configuration Info.” The latter two “represent broad, umbrella categories of functions that reach beyond the narrow, more easily identifiable” device functions targeted by the language in the CVAA, said the filing. The agency should also try to preserve flexibility in any rules governing the closed caption function, and not require a “single step” process for activating captions, said EchoStar and Dish. The commission should also give companies flexibility to determine “how to ensure that an appropriate selection of accessible navigation devices” is available to visually impaired consumers, said the companies. If the FCC requires companies to provide “accessible versions of all of the classes of devices they make available” and doesn’t allow them to recoup the cost, providers should be allowed to “apply a per-user charge to all customers” to fund the R&D necessary to create the devices, the filing said.