Headlines

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin pulled the low-power must-carry item from the agenda for the FCC's Oct 15 meeting in Nashville because his fellow FCC commissioners informed him this week they would not support a notice of proposed rulemaking that included extending must-carry status to more than 500 low-power stations.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin said during a hastily-called press conference he isn't sure the FCC has the "legal authority" to investigate Arbitron's portable people meter radio ratings service.

Sometimes I just want to grab our government leaders by their collective collar and yell: "What part of 'free' in 'free speech' don't you understand?!" when it comes to the issue of digital communication being afforded the same First Amendment protection as traditional print media.

WFMZ-TV Channel 69 in Pennsylvania took the extraordinary step of censoring a congressional debate because a candidate wrongly said Sovereign and Wachovia banks had folded. The station muted the sound and blurred the lips of Sam Bennett (D) as she made the statements in her taped debate with Charlie Dent (R).

Hawaii's full-power television broadcasters will convert to all-digital broadcasts more than a month ahead of the rest of the nation, on Jan. 15, 2009. The rest of the country makes the so-called DTV transition Feb 17.

According to Nielsen, 9.6 million households would receive no TV at all if the DTV transition happened today. In addition, another 12.6 million have at least one analog-only TV set in the house not hooked up to cable or satellite or DTV-to-analog converter box that won't receive a digital signal after the Feb 17 transition.

"Reliable, affordable access to high-capacity telecommunications infrastructure has become as essential as water, sewer, transportation and electricity service in creating healthy and successful communities in the 21st century." So begins a 2007 report by the Arizona Department of Commerce, the "Arizona Broadband Initiative Framework."

Merrill Lynch media analyst Jessica Reif-Cohen thinks the consumer spending recession just getting under way will resemble pre-World War II downturns, which typically lasted 18 months. Media stocks will start to rebound a quarter before the recession ends; ad spending won't recover until a quarter or two after.

Telework Exchange, a public/private partnership focused on telework in government, says its "Out of the Office: Federal Mobile Workforce Trends" study reveals 82 percent of polled feds telecommute some time each month, and 29 percent spend more time working outside of the office today than they did a year ago.