A realistic approach to a dialog to repurpose radio waves for wireless broadband use is needed, said Executive Director Blair Levin of the FCC Omnibus Broadband Initiative. Broadcasters “will just say there is no way to do it, there is no creativity” when it comes to using TV spectrum for other purposes, he said Tuesday at a Progress & Freedom Foundation event in Washington. Stations want to engage in the dialog Levin seeks, but must know how much spectrum the FCC wants, said President David Donovan of the Association for Maximum Service Television.

Coming steps in the FCC’s media-ownership review probably will include a notice of inquiry and hearings outside Washington, said commission, industry and public- interest group officials we surveyed. The commissioners probably will approve a notice formally starting the review, done every four years, in the first quarter, FCC officials said. The office of Chairman Julius Genachowski has given little indication about timing, because the National Broadband Plan is due Feb. 17 and takes priority, officials said.

Top FCC staffers asked about how the commission should take account of the Internet, attribution of radio and TV station ownership and quality of programming in its coming media ownership review. Wide-ranging questions at a commission workshop Tuesday on ownership rules -- the second of three this week (CD Nov 3 p3) -- didn’t always yield many concrete answers, because some questions posed have no straightforward solutions, panelists’ responses suggested. High-quality news should be a goal of the ownership review, which Congress has required the FCC to do in 2010, speakers said.

Top FCC staffers asked about how the commission should take account of the Internet, attribution of radio and TV station ownership and quality of programming in its coming media ownership review. Wide-ranging questions at a commission workshop Tuesday on ownership rules -- the second of three this week -- didn’t always yield many concrete answers, because some questions posed have no straightforward solutions, panelists’ responses suggested. High-quality news should be a goal of the ownership review, which Congress has required the FCC to do in 2010, speakers said. Some results of the ownership are harder to measure than others, said moderator Colin Crowell, senior counsel to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. Competition can be easier to measure “because we've done it before, even though it seems like only yesterday we were doing the last media ownership review,” he said. Crowell asked, “How would you quantify, or would you, new media? Do you count the Internet as one voice? Do you count blogging sites as a voice? And if you count a major blogging site as a voice, is it a national voice, is it a local voice?” It’s hard to “determine the ’true’ impact of the Internet” because “there is almost no original reporting, and what original reporting exists is on soft news,” said Research Director Derek Turner of Free Press. “The Internet definitely has much less impact on competition with the traditional sources. That will change over time. This is one of the pitfalls in trying to construct a diversity index” that takes new media into account. The commission needs to track where content is produced, said President Andrew Schwartzman of the Media Access Project. “Identifying that which is repurposed and which doesn’t add to diversity … makes these proxies a lot more complicated.”

Anyone should have standing to file a complaint to the FCC alleging ex parte rule violations, not just participants in a proceeding, President Andrew Schwartzman of the Media Access Project told a workshop. (See separate report in this issue.) “The transparency function of the ex parte rule affects lots of people, and particularly the press,” he said.

The FCC said Thursday an internal study had found “a number of areas” in which ex parte rules could be “improved or updated.” A workshop Wednesday will examine how rules and processes might be changed to increase openness and will consider matters related to increasing communication online including on blogs, the commission said. The speakers will be Christopher Bjornson of the Federal Communications Bar Association, Diane Cornell of Inmarsat, Jane Mago of the NAB, Amy Mehlman of Mehlman Capitol, John Muleta of M2Z, Jef Pearlman of Public Knowledge, Andrew Schwartzman of the Media Access Project and David Solomon of Wilkinson Barker. Shortly before Commissioner Michael Copps stepped down as interim chairman, he circulated a rulemaking notice seeking comment on requiring that ex parte filings provide greater detail than who attended a meeting and which rulemaking was discussed (CD July 15 p5). The notice remains on circulation, according to the FCC’s Web site.

A public notice on the FCC’s quadrennial media ownership review asked more than two dozen questions in what officials inside and outside the commission said was another step toward opening a formal proceeding (CD Oct 7 p6). The notice was issued by the Media Bureau Wednesday in advance of workshops with academics, broadcasters and public interest groups it will hold Nov. 2-4 on the subject. Comments on the notice, due Nov. 20 (Docket No. 09-182), and discussion during the meetings should focus on the questions listed in the document, it said.

Some high-profile members of the FCC’s most significant advisory panels could be barred from further service under an Obama administration policy reportedly under consideration at the White House. The proposal was first reported in Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call. Craig Holman, Capitol Hill lobbyist for Public Citizen, said in an interview Tuesday the administration appears to be sending up a “trial balloon” as it looks at further tightening lobbyist restrictions. Holman said the restrictions would likely be consistent with the ethics order President Barack Obama released his first day in office.

Some high-profile members of the FCC’s most significant advisory panels could be barred from further service under an Obama administration policy reportedly under consideration at the White House. The proposal was first reported in Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call. Craig Holman, Capitol Hill lobbyist for Public Citizen, said in an interview Tuesday the administration appears to be sending up a “trial balloon” as it looks at further tightening lobbyist restrictions. Holman said the restrictions would likely be consistent with the ethics order President Barack Obama released his first day in office. The restrictions would probably apply to committees chartered under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, Holman said. That would include such high-profile committees as the FCC Advisory Committee on Diversity for Communications in the Digital Age, the Consumer Advisory Committee and the North American Numbering Council. Applying such restrictions to independent regulatory commissions raises questions of executive branch interference, said Andrew Schwartzman, president of the Media Access Project. “That aside, as a measure designed to promote public confidence in the activities of government, it’s a potentially useful development,” said Schwartzman, a member of the diversity committee who’s not a registered lobbyist. But a member of one advisory committee and former FCC official noted that advisory committees at the FCC have no decision-making power. “It’s not like the advisory committee is whispering in the chairman’s ear.” A ban on lobbyists would create immediate holes in the Consumer Advisory Committee. Marti Doneghy, representing AARP, Consumer Union’s Joel Kelsey, the American Council of the Blind’s Eric Bridges and former FCC Commissioner Gloria Tristani all are listed as registered lobbyists by CQ Moneyline. Among members of the diversity committee listed in the database of registered lobbyists are NAB’s Jane Mago, NCTA’s James Assey, Toni Cook Bush, representing Virgin Mobile, and Google’s Alan Davidson.

The FCC sometimes doesn’t make letters between it and Congress public because the agency has no automatic way to do so, Communications Daily has learned. Most of the letters we reviewed under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request didn’t appear in docket files where they would be accessible to the public. Sometimes letters aren’t there because they don’t address specific rulemakings, but we couldn’t find in dockets some letters between the agency and Congress that are germane to particular rulemakings.