A forthcoming U.S.-wide check of the emergency alert system will help point out ways to make technical and operational improvements before switching to a new government standard for EAS, broadcast officials involved with such tests said in interviews Friday. Thursday afternoon, the FCC released an order (CD Feb 4 p10) requiring annual nationwide tests, which won’t immediately use the new standard, the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP). It was finalized late last year by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Not using CAP for the first test, which FCC officials have said could occur in late 2011, has benefits and drawbacks, state broadcast officials said.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski Friday said in an e-mail to staff he supports the anti-regulation moves by the broader Obama administration. President Barack Obama took a jab at over-regulation in his State of the Union address Jan. 25 and the administration issued an order that would measure the effectiveness of regulations.

In a move that could delay the FCC’s inquiry about pay-TV set-top box rules, DirecTV asked the commission to clearly define what kinds of operations would be covered by the new rules. The definition of a multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD) has come up in two FCC program access complaints, both cited in the commission’s order approving the Comcast-NBC Universal transaction, and the time is ripe for the commission to give clear guidance on the issue, industry lawyers said. “DirecTV raised important questions that the Commission should be considering and the industry deserves to have reasonable guidance, which the commission has not been offering,” said Charles Naftalin, a Holland Knight lawyer who represents Sky Angel, a party in one of the cited complaints.

Imposing the right window determining how soon consumers can watch Viacom shows online or on mobile devices is vital to the company’s strategy in extending its distribution to the platforms, CEO Philippe Dauman said Thursday on the fiscal Q1 earnings teleconference. “A window makes it complementary” to Viacom’s traditional businesses “and makes the revenue that we're getting under this deal incremental,” he said. Dauman was referring to a new deal with Hulu that will bring some Viacom shows back to Hulu.com and add programming to Hulu’s nascent subscription service, Hulu Plus.

The FCC expanded its ex parte rules to require filings be made in most active proceedings after any lobbying conversation with commissioners, their aides or other agency officials. An order approved by the commissioners and released late Wednesday largely stuck to a draft that circulated in October (CD Oct 29 p2) in also doubling the amount of time in which most ex parte filings can be made to two business days. That would have made on-time some of the recent late filings we found in our review, as many were made a day late. But advocates for ex parte reform focused on the order’s expansion of the ex parte rules.

An FCC data roaming mandate is critical to help a newer challenger like T-Mobile complete with Verizon Wireless and AT&T, T-Mobile told the commission by letter. Data roaming means job growth, the carrier said. Sprint Nextel also urged the FCC this week to move forward on a data roaming requirement, which was recommended in the National Broadband Plan.

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The Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bipartisan measure designed to speed up the patent system. The committee voted 15-0 on S-23. Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, voted present. The committee delayed a vote on a separate bill by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., to extend until December 2013 three provisions of the Patriot Act scheduled to expire Feb. 28.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected Verizon’s request that the panel of judges who heard the Comcast case and ruled in April against the commission be assigned to its challenge of the FCC’s net neutrality order. The court has yet to rule on a motion asking the court to accept the case. Other challenges to the order, approved 3-2 in December, are considered likely, including from net neutrality supporters who want tougher rules.

Alaska’s second statewide test of its emergency alert systems through radio and TV stations and cable operators last week -- following one a year ago that had major problems -- was a success, participants told us. The lessons from those tests, and exercises across other states, may help prepare broadcasters, cable operators, government officials and others for a nationwide emergency alert test, industry officials said. The national test could come late this year (CD Feb 2 p3), under draft FCC rules that some commissioners have already approved, agency officials said.