The NTIA will eliminate a backlog of requests for 5.6 million DTV converter box coupons by mailing all those $40 vouchers by the end of April, said Acting Administrator Meredith Baker. It takes time to whittle down the stack of approved requests received since the program began Jan. 1, because NTIA doesn’t want to mail vouchers to people in areas where retailers aren’t selling the boxes, she said in an interview Tuesday. The contractor sending out the coupons will distribute 300,000 of them in the first seven days they're mailed, starting sometime this week, she said.

The NTIA will eliminate a backlog of requests for 5.6 million DTV converter box coupons by mailing all those $40 vouchers by the end of April, said Acting Administrator Meredith Baker.

The FCC decision to require anonymous bidding in the 700 MHz auction forced the agency to impose unprecedented controls on information. Even commissioners and their staff have had to sign nondisclosure forms to gain access to material on who is bidding for which licenses. Wireless industry sources fret about potential leaks that could give one bidder an advantage over other auction participants. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said Thursday during a press conference that he couldn’t discuss whether the commission has looked into allegation of collusion before the auction began.

Last week’s order containing the second-largest indecency fine sat on the FCC’s top floor for nearly two years before all commissioners voted for it, said agency sources. In a departure from regular practice, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin didn’t approve the nearly $1.5 million penalty against ABC (CD Jan 28 p1) when circulating the notice of apparent liability on the eighth floor in March 2006, said the sources. Martin likely hoped to defer action on the order until an appeal was resolved in a similar case, said industry lawyers.

Last-minute changes to a controversial FCC media ownership order (CD Dec 19 p1) drew criticism at the agency and on Capitol Hill, with predictions that the agency soon will face appeals of its deregulation of cross-ownership. The FCC’s two Democrats said in interviews that they didn’t have enough time to review important changes made only hours before Tuesday’s meeting. House Telecommunications Subcommittee Chairman Edward Markey, D-Mass., chided the late tweaks. He joined many in Congress criticizing the order clearing the way for radio and TV stations to buy daily papers in big markets.

The Solicitor General got more time to appeal to the Supreme Court an indecency case remanded this year to the FCC by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, said a participant in the case. The government has until Feb. 1 to file, Media Access Project President Andrew Schwartzman said. The government got at least one extension earlier. In Fox v. FCC, the 2nd Circuit said the FCC didn’t give broadcasters adequate notice that they could be fined for airing a program containing one obscenity (CD June 5 p1).

Split FCC votes probably will greet two controversial ownership orders set for votes Tuesday, industry and agency sources said. They expect commissioners to vote 3-2, with the Democrats resisting, for a media ownership order that in some cases would let a company own a station and a daily newspaper in the 20 largest markets (CD Dec 14 p1). An FCC official termed the outcome too distant to handicap. The official and other FCC sources also predicted a split vote on an order to cap at 30 percent the proportion of U.S. pay-TV subscribers each cable operator can serve.

Commissioners have held off negotiating with FCC Chairman Kevin Martin over his media ownership draft order because they want to see whether he will yield to congressional pressure to delay the Dec. 18 vote, agency sources said. They said the chairman hasn’t told colleagues of any plans to delay action, as Commissioners Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps sought Wednesday (CD Dec 13 p1). But commissioners didn’t want to start revising Martin’s draft order -- which would allow common ownership of a newspaper and radio or TV station in most cases in the top 20 markets -- until they're more certain a vote set for Tuesday won’t be postponed, the sources said.

An FCC advisory committee voted Monday for actions billed as helping minorities raise capital and independent programmers get low-power FM licenses, two participants said. The Advisory Committee on Diversity for Communications in the Digital Age unanimously voted to recommend that the agency set up an event in New York early in 2008 for minority-group members to meet Wall Street and other investors interested in financing media and telecommunications deals, said committee chairman Henry Rivera. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin told the committee he would try to attend the gathering, the idea for which was first raised by Commissioner Deborah Tate, said Rivera, a commissioner from 1981 to 1985. The FCC commissioners will be invited to the event, where the advisory committee will hold its next meeting, Rivera said. He said Martin sought committee suggestions on a rulemaking that aims to help minorities buy radio and TV stations. If the chairman issues a further rulemaking notice on how to define small, disadvantaged businesses for purposes of commission rules, the subcommittee would consider recommendations, Rivera said. The definition is part of a minority media ownership rulemaking that Martin has set for a vote by the commissioners Tuesday. (See separate report in this issue.) The advisory group also voted on two low-power FM recommendations, said Rivera and Media Access Project President Andrew Schwartzman, also a committee member. The committee unanimously endorsed a recent FCC recommendation that Congress eliminate third-adjacent channel protection rules limiting the amount of spectrum available to LPFM licensees, they said. Another recommendation would allow full-power radio stations to move between cities in their markets but in some cases require them to underwrite some costs of licensing and building an LPFM station. One member abstained from a vote on the second LPFM recommendation, Rivera added.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin violated the Administrative Procedure Act or similar procedural controls in his media ownership deregulation proposal, both foes and fans of consolidation told the agency in comments on an order Martin scheduled for a Tuesday vote. Several broadcasters said the chairman violated administrative laws, including the APA, by not entirely repealing a 1975 ban on a company owning a daily newspaper and a TV or radio station in the same city. Foes of deregulation said Martin ran afoul of the APA in the unusual way he publicized his plan. The accusations come as other commissioners and members of Congress from both parties take the FCC to task for its rulemaking under Martin (CD Dec 6 p1). Martin says he followed APA rules. Other FCC officials, opponents of consolidation and a professor of administrative law said Martin’s method of announcing his plan was unusual.