Comcast must move Bloomberg TV to a channel position adjacent to other news channels on some cable systems, FCC Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake wrote in an order released late Wednesday (http://xrl.us/bm52km). The order granted in part a Bloomberg complaint that Comcast was violating a condition of its approval to purchase control of NBCUniversal, which owns MSNBC and CNBC. A Comcast spokeswoman said the company disagrees with the interpretation of the condition. “We plan to immediately appeal to the Full Commission and believe they will agree to enforce only conditions as they were originally negotiated and intended, and that the Media Bureau’s mis-interpretation will be overturned,” she said by e-mail.
The broadband adoption gap between blacks and whites is narrowing, the National Urban League’s Policy Institute said in a report released Wednesday. In 2010, the gap fell to 11 percentage points -- 56 percent for African Americans versus 67 percent for whites, according to the report. That gap is down from 19 percent the previous year, the report said. The league released the report at the NCTA, at an event attended by all three FCC commissioners.
The FCC Wednesday released rules for its first-ever reverse auction, for Phase I of the Mobility Fund, offering $300 million for carriers willing to offer 3G or 4G wireless service in areas of the U.S. found to be unserved. The window for filing short-term applications to participate in the auction opens on June 27, and closes at 6 p.m. July 11. The auction is tentatively slated to start Sept. 27. Winners must deploy service within three years of the award for 4G service, two years for 3G service.
Carriers filing replies in the FCC Lifeline proceeding generally supported the creation of a national Lifeline eligibility database, and want to maintain the current monthly reimbursement of $9.25, or increase it to $10. Replies posted Wednesday in docket 11-42 discussed an array of lingering concerns, including reseller eligibility for Lifeline discounts and whether Lifeline should be applied to bundled offerings that include a voice component.
TV station groups will begin paying higher fees for network programming. The timing of when stations will begin paying so-called reverse network compensation will vary company to company, executives said this week during quarterly earnings teleconferences. “The networks are being pretty aggressive,” in seeking fees, said Robert Prather, president of Gray TV.
Low-power TV stations with full-service protections are challenging FCC orders saying the LPTVs face loss of the Class A status keeping frequencies safe from interference. In responses this month and last to Media Bureau orders to show cause why they shouldn’t become regular LPTVs, at least 17 stations have said the commission would violate the Administrative Procedure Act, the 1999 Community Broadcasters Protection Act and/or the Telecom Act by yanking the protection. Another four have said they plan to oppose the status loss, seeking more time to reply. The bureau in the last two weeks issued orders revoking the Class A status of eight stations that didn’t respond to the show-cause demands (CD April 30 p16).
The National Weather Service will start pushing out emergency alerts to cellphones “sometime in late May,” using the new Commercial Mobile Alert System (CMAS), NWS Lead for Emerging Dissemination Technologies Michael Gerber said. Gerber said some questions remain as carriers begin to transmit the alerts, a step required by the Warning, Alert, and Response Network (WARN) Act, which was enacted in 2006. He spoke on a Federal Emergency Management Agency webcast Wednesday on FEMA’s Integrated Public Alert and Warning System.
Several organizations supported the FCC’s proposal to allocate $50 million a year over four years for digital literacy training, they said in reply comments filed in WC docket 11-42. But some groups opposed the funding, arguing it could threaten the availability of E-rate funds for existing services.
The fight over a deregulation bill in Connecticut intensified as the state’s legislative session ends in a week. The bill, SB 447, would eliminate several reporting requirements and allow withdrawal of service without regulatory approval. It would also allow cell towers in state parks with the approval of the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. The bill, already passed by the Joint Committee on Energy & Technology, is awaiting action in the Senate.
Comcast continued to take broadband market share during Q1, adding about 439,000 net broadband accounts, the company said Wednesday. That’s about twice as many as Verizon and AT&T added during the same period combined, in a footprint of about half the size of the two largest phone companies’ service areas, Sanford Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett wrote investors. Comcast lost about 37,000 video customers during the quarter, worse than analysts expected. The company pointed to a rate hike it put in place during the quarter as one explanation.