Monty Tayloe

The FCC required all Web browsers on mobile phones be made accessible for the visually impaired by Oct. 8, said an order Monday on implementing the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act. On circulation is an NPRM on implementing CVAA rules on accessibility requirements for video user interfaces and programming guides, said agency and public-interest officials. An order last month implemented CVAA rules on emergency video description (CD April 10 p6). While some groups representing disabled consumers have said they found the orders and the coming NPRM vague, they also praised the FCC for issuing them. “We've been generally very pleased with the FCC’s efforts to complete these rulemakings in a timely fashion,” said American Council for the Blind Governmental Affairs Director Eric Bridges.

Undecided Supreme Court case Fisher v. University of Texas could limit FCC efforts to encourage diversity in broadcasting, said a presentation to the commission’s Diversity Committee Thursday. Akin Gump lawyer Ruthanne Deutsch said she and others who follow the Supreme Court believe the court will hand down a decision striking down the University of Texas program that factors race into admissions, which she said would leave “a very very tiny tiny window” for government programs considering race. Minority Media and Telecommunications Counsel Executive Director David Honig said diversity in media law “flows from” education diversity law, and that such a decision “could affect a great deal” of what the commission might do to encourage diversity in the communications industry.

Uncertainty about the details of the upcoming spectrum incentive auction and a perception of unfair treatment by the FCC has Class A owners worried about the future of their stations, said several owners and other industry officials in interviews. “How can you know if you should sell your business if you don’t know the value, or even how the auction will work?” asked Vincent Castelli, general manager of a Prism Broadcasting Network Class A in Atlanta. The executives we spoke with elaborated on questions they have for the commission, some of which were posed at a Media Bureau event at the NAB Show (CD April 10 p9).

CEA President Gary Shapiro took the opportunity of a Media Institute lunch Monday to again accuse broadcasters of trying to delay the spectrum incentive auction. “Broadcasters appear to be employing every possible strategy to slow walk the auctions,” he said, repeating an accusation he has leveled against broadcasters at recent speaking appearances (CD April 2 p6).

The FCC Media Bureau granted Charter Communications’ request for a two-year waiver of FCC CableCARD rules to further “the development of an industry wide downloadable separate security standard,” said an order (http://bit.ly/11LKkk0). Thursday’s decision, which was expected (CD April 8 p7), disagreed with opposition to the company’s request from CEA and other groups. Signed by the bureau chief, it includes requirements for Charter to partner with a consumer electronics manufacturer to create a retail device using the new security system and to continue supporting CableCARDs. It includes extra broadband deployment, and the company said faster broadband speeds and better video services are among the benefits Charter subscribers will see.

Broadcasters asked the full 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to re-hear their case for a preliminary injunction against online TV service Aereo, in a petition for an en banc hearing filed Monday. In the filing, the plaintiffs, including major broadcasters such as Fox, NBCUniversal and Disney, said the panel made a “major error” in its 2-1 decision April 1 to deny the preliminary injunction to stop Aereo from distributing New York City TV signals to online subscribers without broadcaster consent. They said the court’s majority opinion “upends decades of settled expectations in the broadcasting industry."

Former FCC Chairman Richard Wiley said current rulemaking procedures have to speed up to address the many regulatory challenges facing the commission. The new FCC chairman “has to make decisions; the commission has to set deadlines,” said Wiley at an American University law school symposium on broadcast regulation. “The commission has to move to a more effective manner of getting things done,” said Wiley.

A week after CBS and Fox talked about moving to a subscription model if retransmission-consent fees are threatened by a victory in court for online-TV service Aereo, some in the industry are divided over whether such a huge shift could really happen. “We're going to use all of our legal options to protect this business model that has sustained our industry,” said an NAB spokesman, echoing Fox Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey, who raised the spectre of a move to subscription at the NAB Show last week (CD April 9 p14). Several industry observers said Carey’s comments were posturing aimed at influencing legislators or investors, because removing content from broadcast would be very disruptive to network affiliates.

"Under the NTTAA, DOE, as a federal department, is required to use technical standards that are developed or adopted by voluntary consensus standard bodies unless these standards are inconsistent with applicable law,” wrote Doug Johnson, CEA vice president-technology policy. DOE has acknowledged that their proposed rules are based largely on the CEA-2043 VA, the test standard used in the industry consensus, but CEA and other industry commenters said the DOE should have to show that the VA is impractical under the law before developing it’s own standards. “U.S. law and good public policy favors simply relying on the standard rather than borrowing from, modifying or reinventing it,” wrote Johnson.

The recent back and forth in FCC filings between Charter Communications and CEA over acceptable conditions for granting the cable operator’s application for a waiver of CableCARD rules could indicate a decision on the matter is upcoming, several industry observers said. The sides have been trading opposing filings on the company’s request for a CableCARD waiver (CD March 26 p13) so it can deploy downloadable security to set-top boxes. With Julius Genachowski planning to leave as FCC chairman, he may want to grant the waiver before he departs, said some industry officials.