Dish Network and DirecTV said they'll work together on a new advertising platform meant to increase sales to national advertisers. The platform, called the Advanced Satellite Advertising Platform (ASAP), will give advertisers access to almost 30 million households, a major selling point. The platform will be interactive and it allows regional locators, product information and requests for additional information, the companies said Monday.

Wireless communications band licensees have long hoarded their spectrum without any serious effort toward deploying services and waited for regulatory relief to make service in the band possible, Sirius XM told the FCC in comments on potential buildout requirements for users of the band. The licensees have no reason to justify the inaction and have simply disregarded the buildout obligations when the spectrum was acquired in 1997 for $13.6 million, it said. “Simply put, WCS licensees have been egregious spectrum warehousers whose actions and words demonstrate a disregard for their buildout obligations, not to mention for the Commissions’ processes,” the company said in comments.

GENEVA -- Several major countries raised concerns during a council meeting last week with ITU’s efforts to spur telecom equipment interoperability with a conformance database, interoperability testing and other measures. Developing countries were largely supportive of the intergovernmental organization’s efforts, but commercial worries weren’t directly addressed. The ITU initiatives were prompted by a 2008 resolution agreed to by almost 100 countries (CD Oct 31/08 p10).

TORONTO -- Canadian government officials are looking at ways to lift limits on foreign telecom and broadcast investment and attract more capital from the U.S. and abroad in response to industry complaints about the country’s restrictions. They're squabbling over how to do so without sacrificing Canadian control of the broadcast, cable, and telecom industries.

The FCC’s proposed net neutrality rules are “in big legal trouble” in the wake of the recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Comcast v. FCC, Commissioner Robert McDowell told reporters Friday. “The concept of a new regulatory regime is in real trouble.” McDowell is skeptical the commission should get more involved in the retransmission consent process, thinks TV spectrum reallocation won’t be held up by Comcast and hopes the regulator deals with an indecency complaint backlog, he said.

A deal that will bring the NCAA men’s basketball finals to cable every other year after 2015 drew praise from the chairman of the CBS affiliate board, while others said it will help the broadcast network. The network, Time Warner’s Turner Broadcasting and the NCAA unveiled the $10.8 billion, 14-year deal Thursday. It calls for national distribution of every game of the tournament beginning next year on CBS and three Turner networks. In 2016, the finals and semifinals will be shared between CBS and TBS (CD April 23 p16). “I applaud his efforts for being able to retain such a premier property on CBS,” said Tim Busch, affiliates chairman and Nexstar chief operating officer. The network and affiliates ran the risk of losing the tournament entirely, he said.

The Illinois Commerce Commission conditionally approved the Frontier/Verizon wireline transaction, voting 5-0 Wednesday. Regulators demanded that Frontier improve service quality and expand broadband throughout its territory. “This grant of authority to Frontier will help to close the gap that still exists for many Illinoisans by giving them access to essential 21st century technologies,” Commissioner Erin O'Connell-Diaz said. West Virginia is the lone state where approval remains pending. The FCC also must approve.

Congress and the FCC should encourage e-care technologies by deploying “significant public resources to deliver broadband” to unserved areas, said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., at a Senate Special Aging Committee hearing Thursday. And rural healthcare providers should receive assistance to buy broadband services if they're not affordable in their area, said Wyden, who guest-chaired the hearing on the FCC’s National Broadband Plan. The senator later talked net neutrality, asking if health care should get a priority lane on wireless broadband.

The Media Bureau denied a request by Sky Angel that the FCC let it keep carrying some Discovery Communications networks while its program-access complaint is considered. At the center of the complaint is the question of whether Sky Angel, which distributes pay-TV programming online, qualifies as a multichannel video programming distributor under federal rules.

Verizon Q1 profit plunged 75 percent from a year earlier to $409 million due to a $970 million one-time health care charge. The carrier added fewer postpaid customers but still expects growth in the postpaid market, Chief Financial Officer John Killian said on a conference call Thursday.