A low-power TV (LPTV) operator is again seeking FCC authority to test an alternate broadcast transmission system that would let stations offer broadband service alongside traditional broadcast content. Portland, Ore.-based WatchTV filed an amended application “to evaluate new digital television technology” with the FCC this week, five months after the FCC Media Bureau denied the station’s last request to test the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)-based system (CD Feb 11 p12). WatchTV’s March application for review of that denial remains pending, it said.

Comcast and the Justice Department may revisit terms of a consent decree clearing the cable operator’s multi-billion-dollar purchase of NBCUniversal (CD Jan 19 p1) after a judge who must approve the settlement expressed concerns, antitrust lawyers predicted. Judge Richard Leon of U.S. District Court in Washington, in a fairness hearing Wednesday afternoon, criticized an arbitration clause in the antitrust pact for online video distributors (OVD), The Wall Street Journal reported. Such rebukes are extremely rare, and all antitrust lawyers we interviewed said they couldn’t recall a single instance where that happened in such a hearing. Comcast and Bloomberg, meanwhile, continued to trade filings at the FCC on the first company’s adherence to one of the agency’s deal conditions.

A breakaway group of rural telcos organized a last-ditch effort to keep their trade associations from signing on to a USTelecom-brokered agreement on Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation regime reforms. “It is simply a bad deal for rural America!” said a draft letter circulated by the Rural Broadband Alliance’s Diane Smith and Stephen Kraskin.

Billions of dollars are at stake in WRC-12 negotiations aimed at creating new jobs, driving economic growth and pushing forward emerging U.S. industries as global leaders, officials said in a briefing. Spectrum for mobile broadband, unmanned aircraft systems, wireless avionics intra-communications and a framework for post-shuttle era communications are some of the top U.S. objectives for the 2012 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC) and beyond, officials said. The U.S. is heavily engaged in bilateral and regional talks to solidify support, they said.

Eric Mokole, head of the Surveillance Technology branch of the Radar Division at the Naval Research Lab, warned Thursday about a growing threat to military radars as the government looks for more spectrum for wireless broadband. The wireless industry often doesn’t fully understand the threat to military radars, Mokole said at the International Symposium on Advanced Radio Technologies in Boulder, Colo.

The availability of free pornography on the Internet has hurt Time Warner Cable’s VOD sales, a drop that contributed to the company’s largely flat Q2 video revenue compared to a year earlier, company executives said during an earnings teleconference Thursday. About a third of the year-over-year drop in VOD sales was due to lower adult title revenue, said Rob Marcus, chief financial officer. The phenomenon isn’t new, said CEO Glenn Britt. “There has been a fairly steady trend on VOD for some time now for adult to go down, largely because there is that kind of material available on the Internet for free,” he said. Adult VOD is a “pretty high margin” business, Britt said, and the decline hasn’t been isolated to the second quarter.

Sprint Nextel, whose Q2 loss was $847 million, entered into a 15-year spectrum hosting and networking service deal with LightSquared. The deal, which contains protection contingency, is subject to LightSquared’s obtaining resolution and FCC approval of certain interference issues involving terrestrial use of the L-Band spectrum. Though Sprint said the deal won’t change its relationship with Clearwire, the WiMAX operator didn’t seem pleased with the agreement. Sprint’s loss widened from $760 million in the year-ago quarter.

The three largest rural telecom associations defended their decision to engage in the USTelecom-led talks on universal service and intercarrier compensation revisions, but told their members to brace themselves for “give-and-take” on rate-of-return cuts and “deeper” cuts in intercarrier compensation. “We understand that many of you may see it as hard to work with carriers and other companies who often look to undermine the support networks that are essential to operation in rural areas,” said NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield, OPASTCO President John Rose and Western Telecom Alliance Vice President Kelly Worthington in a mass email to their members.

With several TV stations and groups potentially for sale, a batch of transactions (CD July 19 p9) could provide investors with a better sense of what LIN Media’s assets are worth and boost its share price, CEO Vincent Sadusky said on the company’s Q2 earnings teleconference. “It’s terrific for everyone associated with the industry that we're going to have some competitive valuation marks, hopefully, as some of these transactions are consummated.” Valuations could be higher than in recent years, he said: “Whether we're a buyer or seller is just going to take place on deal by deal basis.” Even if LIN doesn’t buy or sell any station, it will benefit as stations are sold at higher valuations, he said. “If it doesn’t work for us, we're OK with that. That means these assets will be selling for a premium to our public market value, and that’s a very good thing."

An interim report by a Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee working group identified a series of possible bands to which government operations now at 1755-1780 MHz could be relocated. The report, by the group’s Search for 500 MHz Working Group, was unveiled at CSMAC’s meeting in Boulder, Colo., for an initial discussion (http://xrl.us/bk3c85).