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.

Consumer Electronics Retailers Coalition (CERC) urged FCC to reject NCTA and Time Warner petitions for reconsideration of agency’s cable-ready labels for new DTV sets (CD Nov 29 p5). Signaling no letup in battle between consumer electronics and cable industries over DTV set labels and other DTV-cable compatibility issues, CERC argued that real problem was OpenCable specifications for advanced digital cable set-top boxes and integrated TV sets, not set labels adopted by Commission. In 10- page filing with FCC, CERC criticized cable industry for not supporting digital cable boxes “capable of competition with the MSO-distributed products now on the market.” Group said it was “cable industry compliance, not the labels, that needs to be reformed.” CERC also said NCTA was seeking to “turn this labeling proceeding into a substantive mandate that all OpenCable-reliant DTV receivers must include the ‘1394’ interface” favored by cable and broadcasting industries for digital sets. CERC said cable industry’s own focus group studies showed that “the labels previously recommended by NCTA are… not good enough.”

Bidding in FCC’s C- and F-block PCS auction rose to $14.57 billion Wed., vs. $14.2 billion Tues. Salmon PCS, designated entity with Cingular Wireless investment bid $3.06 billion, followed by AT&T Wireless-backed Alaska Native Wireless with $2.42 billion. Competition remains strong for 3 N.Y.C. licenses, all of which now have surpassed $1 billion mark. In 43rd round, Verizon Wireless bid $1.42 billion for one license there, Salmon PCS $1.13 billion for another and Alaska Native Wireless $1.04 billion for 3rd. Other high bidders in auction of 422 licenses that began Dec. 12 include DCC PCS with $966.4 million, Cook Inlet with $486.8 million, VoiceStream with $385.9 million, Leap Wireless with $336.8 million. Of top 15 bidders, 13 are designated entities, with Verizon Wireless and VoiceStream representing exceptions. Next highest bid for single license after N.Y.C. is $519.7 million for L.A. license by DCC PCS, subsidiary of Dobson Communications.

StreamAudio will provide audio streaming and revenue-sharing ad insertion technology for all 83 Cox Radio stations under new agreement with Cox Radio Interactive. Cox is 4th largest radio owner in U.S., based on revenue.

Most recent round of DTV standard tests was flawed, COFDM backer Sinclair Bcst. said in memo we obtained Wed., day before start of closed-door DTV summit in Washington. Sinclair said COFDM tests inadvertently were conducted with receiver that lacked front-end filter, causing set to be overloaded in many situations. At very least, mistake and test results indicated that NAB and MSTV should go ahead with 2nd round of testing on DTV systems, Sinclair Vp-New Technology Nat Ostroff said in memo. Other broadcast officials didn’t immediately comment on memo.

Ameritech told Ind. Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC) it wouldn’t agree to agency’s request that Ameritech give bigger credits to customers that suffered lengthy service outages during last summer’s service quality crisis. Ameritech last fall voluntarily offered residential customers flat $12 credit and small-business customers flat $40 credit. But IURC last month said compensation was insufficient and strongly suggested company should pay up to $20 per outage day to residential customers and up to $40 per outage day to businesses, similar to outage compensation plan Ameritech agreed to in Wis. But in meeting Tues. with IURC Executive Dir. Michael Leppert, Ameritech Ind. Pres. George Fleetwood said his company wouldn’t be able to honor IURC’s request and further negotiation would be pointless. Ameritech spokesman said carrier believed best use of its resources was investing in network improvements, not issuing additional credits. He said different conditions in Wis. prompted Ameritech to issue larger outage credits there, but he didn’t elaborate. IURC’s Leppert said IURC up to now had hoped informal prodding of Ameritech through requests would have been enough to improve service and get adequate compensation for customers. He said next step would be formal investigation into Ameritech’s network operations and service management. But IURC has no legal power to fine utilities except as part of negotiated regulatory agreements. Pending proposal for renewal of Ameritech price cap regulation, which comes up for hearing Jan. 16, includes up to $30 million in annual penalties for service quality failures, $746 million in network investments and $180 million in rate cuts.

PASADENA -- CBS TV Pres. Leslie Moonves said network had ordered new Survivor series 3 and 4 -- to follow Survivor 2, which begins its run immediately following Jan. 28 Super Bowl. Third in series will air in fall as hedge against possible strike by writers and actors. “That’s all part of the game plan,” along with extended new or expanded editions of news programming, he said at TV critics session here. Reality shows are “not union dependent,” Moonves said. “We hope the strike can be avoided, but we are ready… Obviously, everybody is going to be doing the same thing” in stockpiling reality programming in case of strike (CD Jan 9 p7). He joked that if Super Bowl were “a blowout, we may eliminate the 4th quarter and go right to Survivor… and hopefully in the near future we'll be announcing Survivor 19 and 20.” He refused to discuss prices being paid by advertisers for Survivor 2, but “obviously it’s a great deal more than they paid” for original series last summer.

BellSouth told FCC it was opposed to request by Dept. of Justice and FBI for additional security requirements under Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA). DoJ/FBI asked agency in Nov. to require carriers to: (1) Submit name, phone number, e-mail address and other contact information for person designated as point of contact for CALEA issue. (2) Notify FCC in writing or by e-mail of any change in such contact information. BellSouth said requirements were “unnecessary, burdensome and inconsistent with the Commission’s minimal set of guidelines for compliance with CALEA’s systems security and integrity provisions.”

Moody’s assigned B3 rating to XO Communications’ proposed $450 million convertible subordinated notes to “reflect the relatively early development stage of the company with positive cash flow generation… still likely to be approximately 1 to 2 years away.”

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.