Broadcast TV should be regulated by individual households, not the government, said opponents of the FCC’s “fleeting expletives” rule during a debate Wednesday at the American University law school. Panelists included four filers in FCC vs. ABC and Fox, heard last month by the Supreme Court: David Petron from Sidley Austin (for Fox) and Trevor Burrus from Cato Institute opposing the rules; and rule supporters Chris Gacek from Family Research Council and National Religious Broadcasters Senior Vice President Craig Parshall.

The FCC should not stay an initial decision by an administrative law judge ordering Comcast to carry the Tennis Channel on the same tier as its Golf network, the FCC Enforcement Bureau said in a filing. Comcast sought a stay last month (CD Jan 27 p6), but the Enforcement Bureau said there’s no merit to Comcast’s claims that requiring carriage would violate its constitutional rights. Pointing to previous FCC decisions and the congressional record, the bureau said: “If anything is to be drawn from their collective voice, it is that where a cable carrier has been found to have engaged in affiliation-based discrimination, the public interest manifestly requires an immediate remedy.” A Comcast spokeswoman declined to comment.

An online news company may avoid the public furor that two piracy bills saw last month by signing licensing deals with major websites that aggregate content, its CEO told old- and new-media executives and lobbyists in Washington. NewsRight’s David Westin said the debate over the Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT IP Act -- which led the bills to be put on hold -- doesn’t apply to his company. That’s because the consortium of 29 media companies hopes to pursue contracts with websites and not seek legislation or file lawsuits to get content aggregators to stop carrying news without paying the creators. Westin said last month that he wouldn’t “rule out” litigation (CD Jan 10 p8). Claims that SOPA or PIPA would lead to censorship were overblown, Westin told a Media Institute luncheon Wednesday.

States are likely to see regulatory reforms going forward, panelists said at NARUC’s winter meeting Wednesday. But state legislators need to ensure that deregulation doesn’t harm consumers, some said.

From Sprint Nextel’s perspective the biggest news for Q4 was AT&T’s decision to drop its plans to buy T-Mobile, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse said Wednesday. Sprint, a leading opponent of the deal, reported quarterly results for the first time since the transaction fell apart. “We believe the industry outlook would have been bleak, had this takeover succeeded,” Hesse said. “We also believe that Sprint’s successful championing of a healthy industry and customer choice will have lasting benefits for the way business customers and consumers view Sprint.”

Two draft FCC items move the agency closer to implementing legislation signed into law in January 2011 letting the agency license low-power FM stations closer on the dial to full-power radio. Agency and industry officials said a draft rulemaking asks about technical provisions for second-adjacent separation, which would require LPFM outlets to be two notches on the dial away from full-power stations versus the current third-adjacent limit. The rulemaking also asks about waivers for second-adjacent rules, the officials said.

The House Communications Subcommittee is developing a cybersecurity bill, Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., said Wednesday. After a hearing Wednesday about threats to communications networks, Walden said he’s considering legislation that would provide incentives for the private sector to improve their cyber defenses. “We cannot legislatively through mandates ever get ahead of those who seek to do us harm,” Walden said. But Congress can set up an “incentives-based system that helps [the] private sector … to innovate and not only keep up but get ahead,” he said.

Talk of incentive spectrum auctions in Washington is overblown, Sinclair CEO David Smith said during the company’s Q4 earnings call Wednesday. “Based on what I've seen on the Hill, it’s conceivable there will be no auction any time in the near future,” Smith said in response to an analyst’s question about spectrum bills. “I'm not sure it ever gets into any kind of final legislation because there are fundamental disagreements between the Democrat side and the Republican side about what the final legislation has to say,” he said. Negotiations between House Republicans and Senate Democrats are under way. (See separate report in this issue.)

Implementing the Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation order, tackling consumer issues like bill shock and cramming, and developing a framework for Next Generation 911 are priorities for FCC this year, bureau chiefs said during NARUC’s telecom committee meeting Tuesday.

Without “substantial and radical changes,” mobile roaming reforms floated by EU lawmakers will be a huge failure, a representative for independent mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) said Wednesday at a European People’s Party hearing in Brussels. The event, chaired by the author of the draft legislative response to European Commission plans to force down high data roaming costs, looked at proposed price caps and “structural measures” such as “decoupling” of domestic from roaming contracts and giving alternative providers access to networks in other EU countries at regulated wholesale tariffs. MVNOs fear the report’s recommended roaming prices are so low that independent virtual operators will be barred from competing, said Innocenzo Genna, speaking for Italian MVNO Poste Mobile and independents in general. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development warned that any solution to pricey roaming rates must consider smaller players.