Massachusetts Representative Edward Markey has introduced legislation into the House of Representatives that would dramatically overhaul the nation's telecom disability laws, extending them to new Internet based communications devices. Meanwhile AT&T has filed a statement with the Federal Communications Commission extolling its services to customers with disabilities, calling itself an "industry leader" in the field.

On December 21st, Markey released a draft bill that would require cell phone manufacturers to significantly upgrade their technologies, making them far more accessible to people with hearing, speech, and sight limitations.

Markey's "Twenty-first Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act" would:

• require closed captioning on video programming transmitted by cell phone devices
• require the FCC to initiate a proceeding to "identify methods to render on-screen-displayed text in a manner accessible to individuals who are blind or visually-impaired," including text instructions and texting messages
• require manufacturers to bolster current phone/video technologies to allow people with hearing/voice disabilities to communicate with each other, not just with people without such disabilities
• clarify the legal relationship between the Communications Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act, ensuring that both laws use the same definition of "disability"

Meanwhile, on the same day that Markey announced his new bill, AT&T submitted its annual report to the Commission on the corporation's progress in making its services more accessible, fulfilling one of the requirements it agreed to in December of 2006 when the FCC approved its merger with Bell South.

The Security and Exchange Commission now has a handy-dandy new database that tells you who in the corporate world is making what these days.

These are, of course, the firms that voluntarily disclosed this data. LLFCC couldn't resist downloading the numbers and coming up with this table. Enjoy!

On Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission, by a bare majority, voted to lift its over three decade old prohibition against an entity owning a newspaper and a television station in the same market. Most FCC watchers will now shift their visors to Congress and the circuit courts, where media reform activists will doubtless turn in a bid to reverse this ruling.

But the agency also made four important decisions this month and last that deserve a second glance, not only because they could have an impact on broadcasting, but because they illustrate the extent to which the Commission can promote measures that clearly serve the public interest—when it wants to.

Low Power FM

When the FCC created its Low Power FM (LPFM) service in the 1990s, it ruled that these new, locally based non-profit frequencies did not have to protect so-called "third adjacent" full power FM stations. The National Association of Broadcasters moved almost instantly to quash the provision, using its enormous influence to get Congress to pass the "Radio Broadcast Projection Act," which restored the third adjacent rule.

The Federal Communications Commission has yet to post an Order on its Web site announcing the details of today's decision to allow entities to own newspapers and TV stations in the same market. But that has not stopped anybody from sending their press releases to LLFCC. Here's what we've got so far:

• FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein's dissent
• The Media Access Project
• The Benton Foundation

STATEMENT OF COMMISSIONER JONATHAN S. ADELSTEIN, DISSENTING

Unprecedented media consolidation in recent years has allowed giant multinational media conglomerates to dominate growing numbers of local news markets from coast to coast. These media giants have swallowed up locally owned newspapers, TV and radio stations across America. This has presented challenges to both our culture and our democracy by undercutting the American tradition of a local press, rooted in and responsive to their own communities.

Central to our American democracy is a rich and varied supply of news and information. An informed citizenry requires the "uninhibited marketplace of ideas," where there is an open exchange of communications regarding music, news, information and entertainment programming over the public airwaves. Broadcasters, along with newspapers, still produce, disseminate, and ultimately control the news, information, and entertainment programs that most inform the discourse, debate, and the free exchange of ideas. As the Supreme Court has observed, "it is the right of the public to receive suitable access to social, political, esthetic, moral and other ideas and experiences." That right is enshrined in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

By moving forward now with relaxation of the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rule, the majority ignores the repeated pleas of the American people and their representatives in Congress. There is no time-sensitive issue that compels us to act today. In fact, we were asked by leaders in Congress, including our oversight committees, to defer today and conduct a more inclusive process. That we are moving forward when the voices that matter are asking us to refrain defies the imagination.

The FCC has never attempted such a brazen act of defiance against Congress. Like the Titanic, we are steaming at full speed despite repeated warnings of danger ahead. We should have slowed down rather than put everything at risk.

The reasons for Congressional concern were underscored by the frantic scramble to make major policy changes at the last minute to this item. Late last night, there was a brand new proposal to provide waivers to 42 newspaper-television combinations. And not until early this morning, we learned of massive changes to the waiver standards - an issue of grave concern to me and a number of leaders in Congress. The majority argues this item is the product of long and careful deliberation. But after an odyssey through the Commission and the Courts, massive changes and new, previously unseen waivers were adopted in the dead of night on the eve of a vote. That hardly inspires confidence that this was an open, transparent and deliberative process.

Last week LLFCC published a playful little piece: "Faux Celebrity FCC filings on the rise." Overnight it became the blog's most popular story, logging more hits in less time than anything else on the site. It also generated several interpretations with which I disagree.

The "Faux" article disclosed something that I've noticed over the last year or so. Every now and then some wag files comments with the FCC using the name of a famous person: Donald Trump, Paris Hilton, even Leon Trotsky, Joseph Stalin, George W. Bush, and Jesus Christ. The filings often mangle some auto-comment available on the Web site of a public interest or lobbying group.

They can be pretty funny, too.

"I'm a dead Communist, but I don't want to pay more for my telephone service!" declared "Leon Trotsky" in an FCC comment submitted in March of 2005 regarding a Commission proposal to boost Universal Service Fund rates.

So I compiled all these comments into a story, posted it, and sent it to the mother of all media regulation sites: Techdirt, whose lead writer Mike Masnick generously mentions my blog from time to time.

While members of Congress are protesting the Federal Communications Commission's likely approval of a newspaper/television station cross-ownership rule this Tuesday, December 18, five big media companies say the proposal does not go far enough.

At a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on Thursday, FCC Chair Kevin Martin defended his plan to allow entities to own both newspapers and television stations in the top 20 Nielsen defined markets in the United States. Martin cited shrinking advertising revenue for newspapers, leading to less local news reporting, as the reason for the consolidation move.

"Allowing cross-ownership may help to forestall the erosion in local news coverage by enabling companies to share these local news gathering costs across multiple media platforms," Martin told the Committee.

But the Sinclair Broadcast Group, Gannett Inc., Media General, Morris Communications, and Clear Channel all say they want even more FCC lenience in buying up media properties. Over the last two weeks these five corporations have lobbied the Commission for further relaxation of its media ownership rules; a host of comments arrived on December 11th, the last day for public comments on Martin's proposal.

A major phone company threw the book at a proposal to require incumbent telcos to provide consumers with information about the upcoming DTV transition in their telephone and cable bills. Qwest's December 12th filing with the Federal Communications Commission claims the idea will cause "customer confusion" and violate the First Amendment.

"Any notice about changes in broadcast television signals should come from sources that have a reasonable, logical connection to the issue," a rep from Qwest explained to an advisor to Commissioner Robert McDowell that day. "In this instance, that could include, e.g., broadcasters, cable and satellite television providers, and manufacturers of television sets."

The government has set February 17th, 2009 as the last day of analog broadcasting. The next day all TV stations must transmit via digital (or "DTV") signals. To help the estimated 21 million households that still have analog TV make the transition, the Department of Commerce will soon issue discount coupons good for set top boxes that convert analog sets into digital receivers.