The FCC Wireline Bureau designated for investigation five issues regarding the Access Recovery Charge rates in the 2012 annual access tariff filings of various LECs, in an order released Friday (http://xrl.us/bnodzj). The bureau wants to know: (1) Whether the LECs have reasonably determined the amount of their base period revenue; (2) whether they have reasonably calculated their required intrastate rate reductions; (3) whether they have reasonably estimated their projected interstate and intrastate switched access demand; (4) whether NECA’s allocation of projected pool interstate switched access revenues based on projected switched access billed revenues was reasonable; and (5) whether the suspended ARC rates are just and reasonable. LECs’ responses are due Sept. 27 in docket 12-233; NECA’s response is due Oct. 4.
WACY-TV Appleton, Wis., qualifies as a failed station for the purposes of the FCC’s duopoly rule, the Media Bureau Video division chief wrote in a letter granting a waiver from the rule. The waiver will allow the Appleton Journal to own both WACY-TV Appleton and WGBA-TV Green Bay, which are in the same Nielsen designated market area (DMA). WACY-TV had been silent prior to signing a local marketing agreement (LMA) with WGBA-TV, the letter said. “WACY-TV’s operations were restored only through the financial assistance and operational efficiencies generated by the LMA,” the letter said.
Journal Communications said it agreed to buy WTVF-TV Nashville, a CBS affiliate, for $215 million from Landmark Media Enterprises. “The station will be a cornerstone asset within Journal Communications,” Journal Chairman Steven Smith said. Journal said the deal will be structured as a purchase of stock but will be treated as an asset purchase under federal tax rules. The company said it got permission from some of its banks to expand its credit facility, giving it a total capacity of $325 million.
Lawyers for the American Cable Association met with aides to FCC Commissioners Ajit Pai and Jessica Rosenworcel last week to discuss FCC program access rules, ex parte notices show (http://xrl.us/bnodxd, http://xrl.us/bnodxj). Among other issues, the ACA said the FCC provided enough public notice in its proposed rulemaking to revise some of its program access rules beyond exclusive contract ban. “It is well settled that the APA [Administrative Procedure Act] ‘does not require a precise notice of each aspect of the regulations eventually adopted,’ and that an agency’s notice is adequate ‘as long as it affords interested parties a reasonable opportunity to participate in the rulemaking process,” the ACA lawyers said during these meetings, according to the ex parte notice. “In sum, ACA expressed its belief that notice was adequate for the Commission to move forward at this time and revise its rules as proposed by ACA concerning both buying groups and uniform price increases,” it said. But if the FCC reaches an opposite conclusion, it should quickly release a further notice of proposed rulemaking and set up a quick comment cycle, the ex parte notice said.
FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai is heading home to talk telecom with Kansans, he revealed in a blog post Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bnodwx). Pai plans to speak on reforms of the USF and the best ways to accelerate rural broadband deployment. He will also address his hometown Rotary Club and local high schools on how the FCC can help the private sector serve small towns. Meeting with Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., in Pittsburg, the two will hear perspectives on the telecom industry from local businesses, he said. Pai will also visit Kansas City to learn about Google’s fiber project there, the “local regulatory streamlining” that sped its construction, and consumer reaction. “Hopefully, there are lessons to be learned from the project that can be applied in other markets across the country, big and small,” Pai wrote.
The House Commerce Committee unveiled a new website at http://energycommerce.house.gov. The site makes it easier to find and share detailed information and webcasts for committee hearings and markups, the site’s blog said. The site also aggregates the committee’s work on specific policy issues and offers information and resources on separate subcommittee pages.
LightSquared’s hiring of Kevin Martin, former FCC chairman under George W. Bush, could raise some issues concerning ethics, a satellite industry analyst said. LightSquared’s CEO Doug Smith and Martin, a Patton Boggs attorney, met with Commissioner Ajit Pai last week to lobby for the company’s proposal to deploy terrestrial service (CD Aug 31 p8). The company’s effort to build the network has been stalled since the FCC proposed to pull its ancillary terrestrial component authority. As a commissioner, Martin “was one of the people closely involved in getting this off the ground,” said Tim Farrar, an independent analyst. A lot of the rules were finalized during his chairmanship, he said. Martin’s involvement in lobbying for LightSquared could raise issues similar to concerns around Meredith Baker’s departure from the commission last year to work for Comcast (CD May 13/11 p1), he said. “It does raise some of the same sorts of issues about to what degree should you be deciding things which benefit a company very significantly potentially and then going and doing work for that company.” Martin could not be reached for comment late Tuesday.
Public Knowledge’s suggestion that the FCC should set up a “prevailing party” standard for cost-shifting in arbitrations covering online video distributors (OVDs) under the Comcast-NBCUniversal merger order is unfounded, as are PK’s assertions that without such assurances parties may be reluctant to bring OVD program access complaints, NBCU said in a letter to the FCC (http://xrl.us/bnodvm). PK had raised those suggestions in the context of Project Concord’s (PCI) arbitration with Comcast/NBCU. “Besides being unfounded, Public Knowledge’s suggestions reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of this dispute,” the company said. “The present arbitration was not about ensuring PCI’s ‘access’ to NBCUniversal programming, as Public Knowledge wrongly assumes,” it said: “Instead it centered on whether providing certain content to PCI would exceed NBCUniversal’s obligations under the order or breach other NBCUniversal license agreements.” And as a result of the arbitration, PCI submitted a final offer that “significantly narrowed these issues,” NBCU said. “If public knowledge seeks to champion online video and helps eliminate unnecessary arbitrations under the Order, it should advocate that OVDs invoking the Benchmark Condition be forthcoming at the negotiating table about a peer deal and the terms and conditions that fairly reflect (rather than attempt to exceed) their rights and NBCUniversal’s obligations."
Almost 90 percent of U.S. households that own a computer also subscribe to broadband, Leichtman Research Group found in a new consumer research study released Tuesday. That’s up from five years ago, when Leichtman Research found 65 percent of computer-owning households subscribed to broadband. Higher-income households are much more likely than lower-income households to own a computer and subscribe to broadband -- 91 percent of households with an annual income above $50,000, compared to 47 percent of households below $30,000. “While higher-income households remain most likely to subscribe to a broadband service, the likelihood of computers in the home also increases with household income,” company president Bruce Leichtman said in a news release. “Disparities in computer ownership are the true roots of the broadband divides in the U.S.” (http://xrl.us/bnoduv). Leichtman conducted a telephone survey of 1,351 adults across the continental U.S. in May and June. The margin of error on the survey was 2.7 percent, Leichtman said.
Tennis Channel would have preferred not to have a federal appeals court stay the FCC order granting it broader distribution on Comcast cable systems (CD Sept 4 p2), but it is not the first time a deciding body has stopped the process to take a closer look, Steve Weiswasser, Tennis Channel’s counsel at Covington & Burling, told us. The FCC also stayed the order when it reviewed it, he said. Moreover the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is bound by its own and Supreme Court precedent with respect to Comcast’s First Amendment arguments, he said. “In order to get where they want to go, they have to overcome clear precedent in the court where we are, and Supreme Court precedent,” and find the judgment of Congress and the FCC to not only be wrong but unconstitutional, he said. “We're reasonably confident, as much as one can be while being respectful of the court’s power and wisdom, that the argument we've made and that have prevailed on the merits twice, will prevail again,” he said.