FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski urged CEOs of Fox and Cablevision to end their retransmission consent dispute, he said, saying he spoke to officials at both companies by phone Tuesday. “I reminded the companies that they share responsibility for consumer disruption, and that they shouldn’t punish consumers because of their unwillingness to reach a deal. I also insisted that they negotiate in good faith,” Genachowski said in a statement e-mailed to reporters. He also said he was “deeply troubled” that the companies have spent more time attacking each other through lobbyists and ads than in negotiations. “The time for petty gamesmanship is over.” Meanwhile, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., sent Genachowski a copy of a draft bill that would implement many of the changes some pay-TV distributors want made to the retransmission consent rules.

The Republican who may lead the House Commerce Committee next year said FCC regulations “are only further smothering the economy.” In a Washington Times op-ed piece Tuesday, Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., urged congressional oversight of the FCC and other federal agencies next year. Upton has expressed interest in becoming the next Commerce Committee chairman, and some telecom industry officials say he’s the favorite. Current Committee Ranking Member Joe Barton, R-Texas, must step down under GOP term-limit rules unless he gets a waiver from the Republican leadership.

An FCC order Tuesday increased Sirius XM’s role in deciding which bodies will use channels set aside as a condition of the XM-Sirius merger in 2008. Eligibility for the set-aside, which originally reserved 4 percent of the channels for minorities, was broadened to allay constitutional concerns about specifically benefiting ethnic groups. The order didn’t change in major ways after it began circulating in September (CD Sept 7 p2). The FCC originally set a December 2008 deadline for meeting the merger conditions, but commission action on the set-aside has long been delayed as officials worked through the constitutional issues.

The Obama administration deserves high marks for the speed and aplomb with which it doled out Broadband Technology Opportunities Program grants, but BTOP was too narrow and conservative in the kinds of projects it picked to fund, said two speakers on a panel Tuesday at the monthly Broadband Breakfast in Washington.

Cablevision was refusing to let Verizon carry the first New York gubernatorial debate to its FiOS pay-TV customers, the telco said. Cablevision was sponsoring the 90-minute faceoff among gubernatorial candidates Andrew Cuomo, Carl Paladino and five other smaller-party contenders from 7 to and 8:30 Monday night.

The FCC should be “vigilant” in its oversight of middle-mile prices and access, seek public comment on whether its rules on retirement of copper-wire networks let ILECs keep small carriers out of the market, consider a rulemaking on access to and device interoperability on the newly auctioned 700 MHz spectrum and “examine the impact” on CLECs before increasing rates on pole attachments, the Small Business Administration’s advocacy office said. The comments came in response to last month’s public notice from the Wireline Bureau, which asked for input on how broadband affects small and medium-sized businesses. SBA said its comments reflect the views of leaders from small broadband companies who participated in an Oct. 5 agency roundtable.

Online content accessibility was raised for the first time in a continuing dispute (CD Oct 15 p2) between a broadcaster and cable operator when News Corp. wouldn’t let Cablevision subscribers access the Internet programming from its Fox network because of a linear content blackout, communications lawyers said. A retransmission consent impasse begun around 12:01 a.m. Saturday means all 3 million of the cable operators’ video subscribers can’t see Fox’s three New York and Philadelphia TV stations via Cablevision, and a quick resolution may not occur, industry and government officials said. For more than half the day Saturday, all of Cablevision’s 2.6 million Internet service subscribers couldn’t access any Fox content on Hulu, the video website partly owned by News Corp.

CHICAGO -- The 3.65 GHz band, which the FCC allocated for use on a hybrid, semi-licensed basis in 2005, is proving to be a “success story,” said Office of Engineering and Technology Chief Julius Knapp. The band rules have been seen as offering a new way for the commission to regulate spectrum, with a model that could possibly be used in other bands as well. Knapp spoke Monday at a special one-day session at a Wireless Communications Association conference.

Congress could move on spectrum legislation next year no matter which political party is in control, a telecom aide to Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, told a Law Seminars International conference Monday. A package of noncontroversial spectrum items could be attached to a reauthorization of the FCC’s auction authority, said the aide, Matthew Hussey. FCC Wireless Bureau Chief Ruth Milkman urged Congress to quickly authorize incentive auctions to free up broadcaster spectrum.

FCC commissioners soon will consider whether to reverse course from a staff ruling, an independent arbitrator’s decision and a draft Media Bureau order from early 2009 that until recently was circulating in a case involving Time Warner Cable and the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network, agency and industry officials said last week. They said agency officials will begin more-serious consideration of a new bureau draft order on whether the cable operator must distribute telecasts of Washington Nationals and Baltimore Orioles baseball games to its approximately 1.5 million subscribers in North Carolina. The new draft started circulating Oct. 5, replacing one that was circulated by Kevin Martin on his last business day as chairman and that would have forced carriage, agency officials said.