Promotions at Time Warner: John Fogarty to vp, Gary Matz to vp, Trish McCausland to senior counsel… Sallie Fraenkel advanced to senior vp-mktg. & operations, program enterprises and distribution, Showtime… Jonathan Shair, ex-Bravo/Independent Film Channel, appointed vp-program scheduling and planning, Starz Encore Group… Richard Sulpizio, Qualcomm pres.-COO, elected to board… Ralph Haiek promoted to COO, Claxson Interactive Group… Michael Kennedy advanced to corporate vp and dir.-global govt. relations, Motorola… Berry Smith, senior vp, Schurz Communications, retires Jan. 31… Clifford Rees promoted to pres.- N. America, World Access… Changes at Broadbeam: Sri Sridharan, ex-ServiceNet, named pres.-COO; William Lenahan, CEO, KMC Telecom, joins board… Hewlett Packard Chmn. Carly Fiorina appointed to Cisco Systems board… Geoffrey Crowley promoted to regional vp-sales for the north, Net2000 Communications… Michael Kuehn, ex-Desert Island Resource Group, named vp-quality assurance & process development, Pathnet… Gordon McKenna, chmn., American Teleservices Assn., resigns.

U.S. Appeals Court, D.C., remanded low-power FM (LPFM) rules to FCC to give Commission time to implement latest legislation, responding to NAB petition (CD Dec 28 p4). Court said parties should report to court within 21 days after FCC action, to allow court to decide whether more action was needed. Court also said FCC must implement character qualification provisions of Radio Bcstg. Preservation Act.

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center gave Swales Aerospace 5- year contract worth potential $350 million to provide engineering service for Goddard’s Applied Engineering, Technology, Suborbital and Special Orbital Projects Directorates, including studying, designing, developing, testing, verifying and operating spacecraft and ground system hardware and software. Swales also will coordinate work of Orbital Sciences, Jackson & Tull, Hammers and Curtis Management in deal that consolidates services of 2 prior engineering service contracts.

Salt Lake Organizing Committee will be broadcast frequency coordinator for 2002 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games in Salt Lake City, FCC said in notice Wed. Group will coordinate frequency use in 150 km radius from city during games, FCC said.

Ariz. Attorney Gen. Janet Napolitano ruled expansion of Ariz. Corporation Commission to 5 members from 3, which voters approved in Nov., won’t be effective until 2 additional commission members are selected by voters in 2002 general election. She said plain language of ballot question and fact that legislature didn’t budget for additional members in 2001-02 fiscal cycle clearly showed it didn’t intend that ballot proposition create vacancies that required interim gubernatorial appointments. On related question, Napolitano said current commissioners could be elected to one additional 4-year term when their present terms expired. She said past commissioners, who previously were barred by law from seeking commission seat ever again, could run for 2nd term on agency starting with 2002 elections. With legal questions settled, agency Comrs. Marc Spitzer and Jim Irvin agreed Tues. that Comr. William Mundell was commission’s new chmn. Chmn. serves indefinite term and always casts final vote.

Bills are expected shortly in both chambers of N.Y. legislature that would impose statewide ban on use of handheld mobile phones by drivers of moving vehicles. State Rep. Felix Ortiz (D-Brooklyn) and state Sen. Michael Balboni (R-Nassau County), said they were drafting legislation for their respective chambers and planned to introduce parallel bills soon. They said their measures would supersede all local ordinances, such as one adopted late last year in Suffolk County and under consideration in New York City and 5 other counties. Draft statewide measure would impose $150 fine per violation. Drivers would be allowed to use hands-free phones. Two lawmakers said they expected majority- party support for mobile phone restriction in both chambers. Gov. George Pataki said Mon. he would be willing to consider car-phone curbs. In related matter, Rockland County Executive Scott Vanderhoef vetoed county ordinance that would have included 10-day jail sentence among penalties for drivers caught using handheld mobile phones. He said Mon. that jail term was excessive punishment and called on state legislature to take lead on issue.

Paxson announced series of TV station transactions, including: (1) It agreed to sell KBPX (Ch. 13) Flagstaff and WPXS (Ch. 13) Mt. Vernon, Ill., to Equity Bcstg., terms not disclosed. Stations will remain Pax affiliates. It said sales were move toward complying with FCC ownership cap. Deals mean Paxson stations will reach 33.1% of U.S. households, it said. (2) Pax TV signed joint sales agreements with Scripps-owned NBC stations in Kansas City (KSHB-TV, Ch. 13), Palm Beach (WPTV, Ch. 5), Tulsa (KJRH, Ch. 2). NBC stations will provide sales and marketing infrastructure for Pax stations. (3) Paxson signed joint sales agreement with Dispatch Bcst. station WTHR-TV (Ch. 13) Indianapolis (NBC). WTHR-TV will provide sales and marketing for WIPX-TV (Ch. 63) Bloomington, Ind.

New cable industry study found that 79% of digital cable and 55% of analog cable subscribers were “very or somewhat receptive” to interactive TV (ITV) features. CTAM study, conducted through online interviews with 525 cable customers in 6 major markets, showed video-on-demand (VoD), personal video recorders (PVRs) and local news and information to be most attractive of core interactive features. Customers expressed most willingness to buy VoD services, with 71% of digital cable and 67% of analog cable subscribers saying they would do so. Study also found that cable customers most receptive to ITV features already were tinkering with more rudimentary forms of interactivity, colocating PCs in same room as TV sets and using both devices simultaneously. Most receptive consumers also tended to be 18-34 years old, pay-cable subscribers, frequent pay-per-view users and videotape renters, high-speed data subscribers and owners of big-screen TVs and DVD players.

As FCC continued to weigh AOL’s pending purchase of Time Warner (TW) Wed., consumer groups and smaller ISPs pressed Commission to impose instant messaging (IM) service interoperability and tighter cable open access conditions on merged company. Moves came as one-year anniversary of AOL-TW deal announcement passed without expected merger approval by Commission, which has been grappling with possible additional conditions since FTC okayed deal Dec. 14. While Republican Comrs. Powell and Furchtgott-Roth reportedly have voted to approve merger without additional conditions, outgoing Chmn. Kennard and Democrat Comrs. Ness and Tristani still were trying to craft compromise on IM issue that would set some requirements. In ex parte presentations earlier this week, Consumers Union and Media Access Project urged agency staffers to back interoperability standards for IM services. They argued that reported Cable Bureau staff proposal to force AOL-TW to open its high-speed cable lines to 2nd, unaffiliated IM service was “of limited utility.” On open access issue, consumer groups called on FCC to mandate that AOL-TW provide access to smaller local and regional ISPs as well as such larger national ones as EarthLink. They said proposed requirement would advance “Commission’s public interest objectives of diversity and localism.” Group of smaller ISPs submitted proposed merger condition to FCC Tues. that would require AOL-TW to “enter into a contract with at least one local and one regional ISP in each franchise area in which cable modem service is made available.” ISP group also called on Commission to make AOL-TW open its cable lines to business-oriented services provided by independent ISPs.

Veil Interactive Technologies said it received patent for inserting data into visible portion of broadcast signal. It said technology would allow broadcast signal to become “universal platform” to allow interacting with TV through broadcast signal. Technology uses full-video-image data stream, rather than just vertical blanking interval, allowing up to 6 Mbps to be transmitted, Veil said.