The posting of about 3,000 pages of documents in the FCC net neutrality docket, days before a vote on an order set for Tuesday, is unusual and not a good practice for any agency, said administrative law professors and former commissioners not involved in the policy debate. The Wireline Bureau posted about 2,000 pages Dec. 10 (CD Dec 11 p1) and 1,000 more Tuesday (CD Dec 15 p8). The documents contain information that was publicly available, but not all of it had been filed in docket 09-191.

FCC approval of net neutrality rules at Tuesday’s meeting is not a done deal, commission officials acknowledged this week. There remains a “distinct possibility” that the order could “blow up,” a source said. Meanwhile, Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., a member of the Commerce Committee, asked the FCC commissioners to cancel their scheduled vote and respond to his office by noon Friday. In an unusual step, Rogers had the letter hand-delivered to each commissioner’s office Thursday.

Terrestrial TV may be quite different in two decades, industry executives and others said Thursday. Experts split over whether over-the-air TV will be around at all. In a panel on broadcasting and retransmission consent deals held on Capitol Hill by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, Michael Calabrese of the New America Foundation said “broadcasting will be completely off the air in a decade or two.” Broadcast representatives, including an NAB official, disagreed.

A failed attempt to start arbitration proceedings in retransmission consent negotiations between Sinclair Broadcast Group and Time Warner Cable resulted in both parties pointing fingers and blaming the other for the lack of progress. TWC “effectively refused” to submit to binding arbitration with Sinclair except under onerous conditions, Sinclair said in a press release Thursday. Limitations on the kind of evidence allowed into the arbitration, and restricting the scope to just the stations Sinclair owns that are affiliated with the major 4 broadcast networks were among the conditions, Sinclair said. But TWC said it was Sinclair that ultimately balked at arbitration. “We told Sinclair we would arbitrate, and then yesterday Sinclair declined our consent to arbitrate,” a spokeswoman said. TWC doesn’t believe its customers should have to pay anything for carriage of Sinclair’s CW MyNetworkTV affiliates, and has offered those stations must-carry status on its cable systems, she said.

A New York State supreme court judge pushed for a settlement and set an April trial date in Cablevision’s $2.5 billion breach of contract suit against Dish Network stemming from the failed Voom HD satellite service. Judge Richard Lowe on Wednesday asked Cablevision and Dish to discuss a possible settlement, but set April 6 as the start of a four-week trial if an agreement isn’t reached.

The Commerce Department proposed adoption of fair information practice principles amounting to a “Privacy Bill of Rights” for online consumers, setting up a privacy policy office in the department, and reviewing the Electronic Communications Privacy Act in light of cloud computing, it announced Thursday.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s plans to add net neutrality rules under the agency’s existing Title I authority comes as a relief to satellite broadband companies, said an industry executive. Under the Title I approach, satellite broadband would not be subject to Universal Service Fund contributions, as could have been the case had the agency gone forward with Title II reclassification, said Steven Doiron, director of regulatory affairs at Hughes Network Systems. Although the details of Genachowski’s plan haven’t been released, the FCC’s efforts aren’t expected to have major impact on satellite broadband providers’ businesses otherwise, said executives.

Public interest groups are turning up the heat on the FCC to strengthen net neutrality rules regarding wireless and a few other areas, in an order circulated by Chairman Julius Genachowski Nov. 30 for a vote Tuesday. The key question, commission and industry officials said Wednesday, is whether Democratic Commissioners Michael Copps and Mignon Clyburn will prevail on Genachowski to make changes to make the rules tougher, though doing so could blow up industry support for the rules.

House Commerce Committee Democrats probably won’t decide right away whom to vote for to lead Democrats on the Communications Subcommittee, a race that’s being closely watched by the telecom industry, lobbyists from both parties said. They said that those U.S. representatives who are named to the full committee, which will have fewer Democrats come January because Republicans will have a larger proportion of members of the body, likely will meet in January to make their decisions. It’s unclear exactly when the vote will occur because some details of the committee makeup depend on decisions made by the GOP. That party will pick a chairman of the Communications Subcommittee as soon as this week.

Acceptance by opponents and lawmakers of the Local Community Radio Act, awaiting a Senate vote, is sought by those in noncommercial radio. HR-1147 could make it easier to create low-power FM (LPFM) stations in larger markets. The NAB, a major opponent to the bill, has been instrumental in holding it back, some community radio supporters said. The NAB said it has concerns over the bill creating interference to full-power stations.