Monty Tayloe

The FCC approved a draft item on accessibility for user interfaces Wednesday and deleted it from the commission’s meeting agenda Thursday. No commissioners dissented from the item, an FCC official told us. The text of the order, which is expected to concern gestures and voice-controlled closed captions and accessibility information requirements for pay-TV carriers (see 1511160058), is expected to be issued this week, FCC officials told us. Some experts had expected the final item to incorporate a compromise between industry and advocates.

T-Mobile’s zero-rating service Binge On shows that the net neutrality order doesn’t force companies to check with the FCC before issuing innovative products, Chairman Tom Wheeler said during a news conference. The service, which exempts some online video products from T-Mobile’s data cap, is both “highly competitive and highly innovative,” Wheeler said. The FCC will “keep an eye” on the service to make sure it doesn’t violate the order’s general conduct rule, he said after Thursday’s open commission meeting.

The FCC is “trying to be helpful” to broadcasters seeking deferred taxes on their takings from the reverse auction or from channel sharing agreements, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler told us during a news conference Thursday. Several broadcasters have approached the FCC over the issue recently (see 1511130041). Wheeler said efforts to have incentive auction proceeds taxed favorably began with a letter from the commission to the IRS early in the auction process. Wheeler was asked Thursday if he was open to delaying the incentive auction, and he replied that the auction is 131 days away -- referencing the planned March 29 start date. Commissioners Ajit Pai and Mike O’Rielly said the FCC should be willing to delay the auction if required for the process or the auction software to run smoothly. “The ultimate timing is up to the chairman,” Pai said.

If legislators don’t provide funding for the FCC to upgrade its IT systems, it could affect the commission’s ability to do its job, Chairman Tom Wheeler said at a news conference after Thursday’s meeting. He responded to a question about an oversight hearing (see 1511170060). If the commission’s “baseline” systems “are hindered, all activities that rely on those services are hindered,” he said. Wheeler referred to the commission’s Network Outage Report System, which monitors broadband networks and their interruptions. “We need to have the capability to track what is happening," he said. Wheeler said he also hopes that legislators don’t reduce the size of the FCC.

Moving to the ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard would provide enhanced emergency communications to the public and first responders, the need for which was underscored by the recent terrorist attacks on Paris, said numerous speakers at the NAB-sponsored Smart Spectrum Summit Wednesday. Rep. Andre Carson, D-Ind., and FirstNet CEO Michael Poth -- both former police officers -- said first responders need dependable, fast communications that include data and video.

The FCC hasn’t systematically studied the effect of the TV incentive auction on low-power TV stations (LPTV) and translators, and they don’t factor into auction simulations or repacking analysis, said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler Monday in a letter to Rep. Renee Ellmers, R-N.C , in which he announced the circulation of policies designed to mitigate the auction’s effects on those broadcasters. LPTV industry officials -- and legislators in an October letter to which Wheeler was responding Monday -- have been pushing the FCC to release the impact studies used to create the auction, and a Freedom of Information Act request from LPTV investor Free Access & Broadcast Telemedia (FAB) for that information was rejected using similar language to Wheeler’s.

A draft item on accessibility for user interfaces on the agenda for the FCC's Thursday meeting contains a compromise on using voice or gesture commands to activate captions that is expected to satisfy both consumer groups and pay-TV carriers, said industry officials and pay-TV attorneys in recent interviews. Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, the National Association of the Deaf and other groups filed a petition for reconsideration (see 1401240080) of the FCC's first user interfaces order, approved in 2013 as part of efforts to comply with the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA). Along with a recon order containing a captions compromise, the draft item includes an order on training and notification requirements for pay-TV carriers informing their customers about accessibility.

Broadcaster participation in channel sharing could be affected by how the IRS taxes the procedure. Industry lawyers and broadcaster Entravision said that could depend on a seemingly innocuous administrative decision by the FCC: Will the commission pay out spectrum auction winnings to intermediaries, or require that the funds go directly to licensees? Broadcasters that channel share want the FCC to be capable of paying funds to qualified intermediaries or trusts, attorneys told us, because that could make channel-sharing transactions eligible to be treated as like-kind exchanges, allowing the broadcaster giving up its spectrum to defer gains taxes on the portion of the money paid to its sharing partner. Entravision has participated in “discussions” focused on whether "relinquishment proceeds that a broadcast licensee would receive are eligible to be used in a tax-free manner towards a channel sharing arrangement structured as a like-kind exchange,” said its ex parte filing posted Thursday in docket 12-268.

Kicking off the TV incentive auction on its appointed March 29 start date is among FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's top-most priorities, said Gigi Sohn, his counselor, at a Practising Law Institute event Thursday. The idea that the current FCC is more divisive than previous ones is “a bunch of nonsense,” Sohn said, referring to a recent story (see 1510280062). “In the past, there were interparty battles,” Sohn said, saying past FCCs have been similarly contentious. For that Oct. 29 story, the agency was provided a chance to comment and declined.

A lack of funding is a major barrier to public, education and government (PEG) channels providing closed captions, said consumer groups, FCC officials, and the PEG channel advocacy group Alliance for Community Media (ACM) during a roundtable discussion on PEG closed captioning at the FCC Tuesday. Though FCC rules and the Americans with Disabilities Act require captioning for PEG channels, both have exemptions for size and funding that most PEG channels fall under, several industry officials said. That hampers the ability of the hearing impaired to participate in their local communities, said Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (TDI) Executive Director Claude Stout. “We're paying our taxes just like the rest of you,” Stout said. “How can I make an informed decision if I'm not informed?”