Few companies or groups are pushing the government to mandate a la carte for cable, although some of the conditions proposed for Comcast’s planned purchase of control of NBC Universal echo elements of dormant channel-unbundling proposals. The American Cable Association asked the FCC Thursday to require Comcast to negotiate separately from deals for other programming distribution agreements for its regional sports networks (RSNs) and for the NBC TV stations it will control after the deal closes. Talks on RSNs and stations should also be separate, ACA said.

The American Cable Association asked the FCC to put off for two weeks its Aug. 5 deadline for replies to oppositions by Comcast and NBC Universal to requests for the commission to block their deal. The association said in a filing Friday that it wasn’t due to gain access until that day to the unredacted version of an opposition filed Wednesday by Comcast, NBC Universal and NBCU parent General Electric (CD July 23). And the ACA said its economic consultant, William Rogerson, is to have surgery Monday. Meanwhile, Free Press, which opposes Comcast’s purchase of control of NBC Universal, said in a filing in docket 10-56 that the companies have failed to meet the test for FCC approval that their merger would be in the public interest. The group said that in a meeting with Commissioner Michael Copps and aides, Executive Director Josh Silver and other representatives of Free Press had “expressed skepticism that conditions would be effective in remedying the anticompetitive harms resulting from the merger.” On net neutrality, the group said paid prioritization must be banned to preserve an open Internet. Free Press representatives made a similar point (CD July 23 p11) last week to FCC Chief of Staff Ed Lazarus, who has been holding meetings on broadband reclassification. (See separate story in this issue.) Viacom executives asked Chief Bill Lake and other Media Bureau staffers about the commission’s timetable for reviewing Comcast-NBC Universal, said a filing Friday in the docket. Of the FCC’s inquiry on gateway devices that can connect consumer electronics equipment to any pay-TV provider, Viacom said, “we expressed concern that the Commission’s proposal will not achieve its intended result and pointed out that a failure to take into account critical provisions in content distribution agreements will harm consumers in unforeseen ways."

The FCC was flooded with more than 100,000 comments and other filings on its October rulemaking notice that would deepen the FCC’s oversight of net neutrality as well as expand the rules to cover wireless. There were few surprises, with lines long drawn in the battle. Some major industry players including AT&T and Verizon are hinting at a legal challenge if the rules are adopted as proposed. A few traditional opponents found room for compromise.

Small cable operators with rural systems applied for $1.3 billion in NTIA and RUS grants and loans for last-mile and middle-mile broadband projects in unserved and underserved areas, the American Cable Association said. Applications were made by 83 of the companies, including NewWave Communications, NPG Cable and Wave Broadband, all closely held, the ACA said late Thursday. Large, publicly traded cable operators including Cablevision and Time Warner Cable said they didn’t plan to apply.

Washington is soliciting proposals from companies interested in mapping the state, Washington’s Broadband Advisory Council said this week. While the state issued the request for proposals on July 17, the council made it public this week along with a report on how best to increase broadband connectivity in the state. States must designate a single entity to do broadband mapping in order to receive federal mapping funds.

Small and mid-size cable operators asked lawmakers to examine how carriage deals may affect the digital transition. House Telecom Subcommittee Chairman Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Ranking Member Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., were asked in a Monday letter by American Cable Association President Matt Polka to “inquire” how such deals “in the months leading up to the DTV transition” could affect the switch. With many retransmission consent agreements between cable operators and broadcasters set to expire by Dec. 31, ACA worries about “mass confusion” among viewers if the industries can’t reach new accords, he said. Impasses in negotiations could lead broadcasters to pull their signals off cable, meaning “consumers will be unaware whether or not their lost channels are the result of the DTV transition” or other factors, wrote Polka. NAB said ACA’s connection of carriage deals and DTV is “desperate” and policymakers shouldn’t be “fooled” by the tactic. Carriage talks work “exactly as Congress intended,” said an NAB spokesman.

The latest CableCARD waiver request sent to the FCC has a twist. Guiness Communications said it needs a waiver of the July 2007 set-top box navigation and integration ban because its customers live on an island connected to Canada, where CableCARDs aren’t available. Guiness has 750 customers in Pt. Roberts, Wash., located on a peninsula not connected to the continental U.S., it said. A waiver wouldn’t affect the U.S. CE market because Guiness customers buy most electronics in Canada, the company’s Mon. filing said: “CableCARD devices are typically not sold in Canadian stores.” Other recent CableCARD waivers have made similar requests (CD May 1 p7). In April 8th floor visits, cable operators lobbied for waivers, said ex parte filings from the American Cable Assn. (ACA). Officials from ACA, Armstrong Cable, Mediacom and Wave met about waivers with Comrs. Adelstein and Tate and an aide to Comr. McDowell, also asking the FCC to place curbs on Liberty Media’s deal to get a controlling stake in DirecTV from News Corp. “The Commission should use the Hughes/News Corp. conditions as a model” for the pending deal, ACA said, “expanding and adjusting those conditions to remedy gaps and loopholes in the model that have become evident over the past 3 years” since News Corp. acquired the DirecTV stake from General Motors.

The American Cable Assn. (ACA) wants Congress to require DBS to sell local broadcast signals to small rural cable operators that can’t get adequate signals on their own. But DBS operators say they've been investing heavily, especially in local HD, and hesitate to help competitors. The ACA went to Capitol Hill this week en masse to push this and other industry priorities in anticipation of the DTV transition.

Chmn. Powell announced Fri. he will leave the FCC in March. With key issues pending for all communications sectors, sources agreed the next chmn. is likely to maintain Powell’s policies in the broadest sense, including an emphasis on competition and on promoting new technologies.

Cable channels are like guava paste -- if people stumble onto the product, they like it, said Jon Mandel, co-CEO and chief global buying officer for advertising firm Mediacom Worldwide (not connected with cable MSO Mediacom). The power of a large bundle of cable channels is similar, he told an FCC symposium on a la carte pricing: Many people will happen upon a cable channel, only to find programming they can no longer live without.