The Healthy MEdia Commission introduced a set of goals media companies should aspire to as they present images of girls, women and relationships in entertainment, as expected (CD April 16 p2). Children spend more time with media than they do with their families or at school, commission Co-chair and former FCC Commissioner Deborah Tate said at a news conference at the NAB Show late Monday. “We know it’s very important, especially for young girls, to have a healthy outlook and image of themselves and their potential,” said Commissioner Mignon Clyburn. Companies across all forms of media, should strive to increase representations of healthy body images, active and diverse female characters, equal and healthy relationships, the recommendations said (http://xrl.us/bm376h). That includes more representations of girls and women of various body types, ages, races and ethnicities, girls with disabilities, and depictions of female characters that are not hypersexualized, the recommendations said. Entertainment programming should also include women as main characters, portraying characters in leadership roles and who have healthy and equal relationships with male characters, the recommendations said. They should also try to increase the number of roles available to women and girls in entertainment productions. The recommendations were from research by the Girl Scouts of the USA, the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, the American Psychological Association and a group of media industry and youth development experts. The commission includes executives from Time Warner Cable, Harpo Radio, Meredith Publishing, Beasley Broadcasting, PBS, Scripps, Univision, A&E, Time Warner, MPAA, Canoe Ventures and other companies, public-interest groups and independent authors and TV producers.
Alaska eligible telecom carriers should receive a two-year delay in FCC Connect America Fund implementation, members of the Alaska Rural Coalition told aides to Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Robert McDowell Monday (http://xrl.us/bm377g). The commission’s justification for providing a two-year transition delay for competitive ETCs serving remote parts of the state is “equally applicable to all ETCs that serve remote Alaska locations,” ARC said. It requested a delay in the limitation of corporate operations expenses, the cap of corporate operations on interstate common line support, the application of a regression analysis to cap loop costs and the elimination of the safety net additive. The cost of terrestrial middle-mile operations must factor into the commission’s broadband benchmarks, because current “exorbitant rates clearly demonstrate the problem of securing affordable middle mile,” the ARC said.
The FCC Enforcement Bureau debarred a Pennsylvania man from the E-Rate program for a period of three years after he pleaded guilty to intentionally misappropriating nearly $50,000 in federal education funds in his capacity as superintendent of the Glendale School District. The man, Dennis Bruno, also admitted he had conspired with others to fraudulently obtain over $400,000 from the E-Rate program, according to the bureau’s notice.
NTIA would receive $47 million in FY 2013 under a Senate appropriations bill approved Tuesday afternoon. The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science adopted the appropriations bill by a 17-1 vote. The amount for NTIA is the same as what President Barack Obama requested and about $1.5 million more than what the agency is estimated to receive in the current fiscal year. The total bill for Commerce, Justice and Science was $51.86 billion, down $1 billion from the FY 2012 enacted level. It provides $6.3 billion total for the Commerce Department, $1.5 billion below the FY 2012 level. The National Institute of Standards and Technology got $826 million, up $75 million from the FY 2012 level. Subcommittee Chair Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., urged the Commerce Department to be “cyber obsessed,” in an appropriations hearing last month (CD March 23 p16). The subcommittee’s House counterpart plans to mark up its own Commerce, Justice and Science appropriations bills Thursday at 9:30 a.m. in Room H-140, Capitol Building.
PBS will use a content distribution system from Ericsson to offer more HD and better quality. The product allows nearly 360 public TV stations “to receive a wide variety of popular content by delivering more high definition programming, providing a richer, more enhanced viewing experience to the American TV audience,” PBS said. The addition of the system is part of PBS’s transition from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 advanced video coding, PBS said.
Sprint Nextel petitioned the FCC for a waiver of the legacy 25 kHz bandwidth limitation for 11 economic areas where it has 800 MHz Enhanced Specialized Mobile Radio (ESMR) spectrum. “The requested waiver would permit Sprint Nextel to provide more advanced broadband data and voice services to more customers than it currently is capable of providing on its 2G 800 MHz iDEN Network,” Sprint said (http://xrl.us/bm3742). “Accordingly, such relief is consistent with the public interest and the Commission’s goal of promoting widespread competitive wireless broadband services to all Americans.” The commission recently sought comment on a rulemaking notice on rules for the ESMR band, allowing for more general deployment of larger channels in the spectrum (CD April 17 p3). The waivers cover cities including Houston, Philadelphia, San Francisco and the Kansas City metropolitan area.
Harris Corporation deployed two unfurlable mesh antenna reflectors onboard the Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) satellite. It’s the first of five MUOS satellites, and each one will carry two Harris reflectors, which have a reflective gold mesh weave providing the reflective surface required for radio waves, Harris said. MUOS “will provide military users with next-generation, narrowband tactical satellite communications with 16 times more capability than existing UHF satellites,” it said.
Must-carry law doesn’t “compel a Dual Carriage interpretation,” a mid-size cable operator said. FCC rules expiring in June, unless extended, make some systems carry HD and standard definition versions of TV stations guaranteed cable carriage. The agency “has very strong First Amendment and policy grounds to construe the statute” as not requiring dual carriage, a Bright House Networks lawyer reported telling aides to Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Robert McDowell in meetings last week. “Dual Carriage goes well beyond the original must carry mandate -- because it requires duplicate and inefficient carriage.” Monday’s ex parte filing is in docket 98-120 (http://xrl.us/bm372h). Broadcasters seek a viewability rule extension (CD April 17 p12).
Stockholders appear overly skeptical about prospects for TV station participation in the FCC voluntary incentive spectrum auction, Guggenheim Partners analyst Paul Gallant wrote investors Tuesday. Given the strong rhetoric from industry leaders such as CBS indicating a lack of interest in the auction, the skepticism is understandable, he said: But it may be overblown. It’s in broadcasters’ interest to “suggest they are not interested in selling” or remain quiet about their plans if they are, Gallant said: “That could help drive at least somewhat more favorable FCC rulings for broadcasters in the coming year” on auction-related items. It could entice wireless carriers to signal they'll pay well for the spectrum to induce greater broadcast industry buy-in, he said. Investors too may be doubtful because they typically don’t hear from the types of station groups most likely to participate, Gallant said. “Privately-held stations are less likely to have retrans revenue and are more natural sellers of spectrum,” yet these private station owners have little dialogue with Wall Street, he said. “We think this skews the information flow to investors about the likelihood of broadcast spectrum sales.” FCC officials indicated at the NAB Show this week that some station groups have expressed interest in the auction. (See separate report in this issue.)
TVGuardian became the first entity to seek FCC reconsideration of January’s order (CD Jan 17 p3) requiring subscription-video and broadcast-TV shows to have captions when they're sent using Internet Protocol. The order “incorrectly” interpreted that 2010’s 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA) doesn’t require video programming providers, video programming distributors and digital video source devices to pass through captioning data to consumer electronics, the company said Monday. The order makes it “impossible” for recording devices “to comply with Congress’s mandate under the CVAA to enable viewers the ability to activate and de-activate closed captions,” said the CE maker, whose products include a caption decoder. “The interpretations and rules should be revised to create an environment in which Recording Devices may comply with this CVAA mandate.” TVGuardian’s petition is in docket 11-154 (http://xrl.us/bm37ws).