Digital sales at LIN TV could reach 25 percent of total sales within three or four years, CEO Vincent Sadusky told investors Thursday. That’s the company’s target and would put it ahead of broadcast peers, he said. Sales from LIN’s TV station websites, mobile applications and retransmission consent now make up about 15 percent of revenue, but all those categories have the potential to keep growing, he said. The company’s recent acquisition of RMM, an online ad company, will help it keep selling new online ad products that incorporate geo-targeting and advanced performance metric-based pricing, Sadusky said.

SAN FRANCISCO -- A push by a broad front of marketing-industry organizations to forestall federal action on behavioral targeting (CD June 15 p10) will burst widely into public view over the next three months, said a co-founder of the company whose technology helps power the disclosure effort. “Self-regulation is happening,” said Colin O'Malley of Better Advertising. “It’s time for everyone to get on board.”

The FCC should not apply “retroactively” Federal Aviation Administration marking and lighting changes for communications towers or replace the FCC’s current “due diligence” standard with inflexible deadlines for lighting repairs, CTIA said in comments on an April 12 notice of proposed rulemaking on construction, marking, and lighting of antenna structures. NAB, PCIA, AT&T and Verizon Wireless also urged the FCC to streamline its tower rules in light of rapidly expanding communications networks.

Public safety would get the 700 MHz D-block under major new bills unveiled separately Tuesday by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and by Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and John McCain, R-Ariz. The latter bill is similar to a House one (HR-5081) introduced a few months ago by Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y. On a conference call with reporters, senior FCC officials welcomed the Rockefeller bill, even though it clashes with the National Broadband Plan’s recommendation that the band be sold at auction. An agency spokeswoman declined to comment on the McCain-Lieberman legislation.

Software and IT industry groups hailed the administration’s Joint Strategic Plan on IP enforcement Wednesday, reiterating the need for stronger IP protection in the U.S. and abroad. Five industry groups spoke at Wednesday’s House Committee on Small Business hearing to evaluate the impact of intellectual property on entrepreneurship and job creation. They said the administration’s plan was a positive step toward protecting small business from losses incurred by online piracy.

The FCC stood by media ownership deregulation, excusing in five instances licensees from restrictions on owning a daily newspaper and radio or TV station in the same market and allowing such cross-ownership in large cities approved on a party-line vote in December 2007 during Chairman Kevin Martin’s tenure. That was spelled out in a filing Wednesday afternoon to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, which is considering industry challenges seeking further deregulation and media consolidation opponents’ requests for stricter rules. Commissioner Michael Copps, who along with then-Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein voted against the congressionally mandated quadrennial review report, slammed the filing, which Chairman Julius Genachowski said he supports because the FCC acted within its discretion.

The FCC’s Sixth Broadband Deployment Report, released late Tuesday, said only a small percentage of Americans don’t have access to broadband -- 14-24 million in a population of almost 310 million (CD July 21 p1) -- but almost one third of U.S. counties are unserved. Broadband “have nots” live in the smallest, most rural parts of the country and tend to be poorer than average, it said, and Native Americans remain largely unserved.

Internet accessibility legislation cleared the House Commerce Committee by a unanimous voice vote Wednesday. The committee reported the bill (HR-3101) to the full House with amendments addressing industry concerns, expanding video description requirements, and establishing an annual $10 million fund to subsidize equipment for the deaf-blind. Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., reaffirmed he wants to see the bills on the House and Senate floors next week in time for the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The Senate Commerce Committee passed its own version of the bill (S-3304) last week (CD July 16 p5).

Draft FCC rulemakings propose changing how DBS providers must deal with carriage of TV stations to subscribers who live in a different market and in some cases wouldn’t be able to watch the station over-the-air by antenna, agency officials said. They said the two drafts respond to this year’s Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act (STELA) and are expected to be approved by FCC members soon, perhaps this week, and then publicly released for comment. Quick turnaround of the items which circulated Friday is likely because the agency must take final action on distant signal carriage and DBS subscriber signal measurement, subjects of the pending items, by Nov. 23 under STELA, agency officials said.

Telcos and consumer advocates are squaring off in California over SB-1375, a “warm line” 911 emergency service bill. Passed 35-0 by the State Senate June 1, the measure was approved 14-0 by the Assembly Policy Committee June 28. When the Legislature reconvenes Aug. 4, the Assembly Appropriations Committee will take up the bill. Sponsored by Sen. Curren Price (D), the bill proposes to update a 1995 mandate that carriers give all landlines permanent access to 911 services even if no account exists or service has been cut off for non-payment. California and other states imposed the requirement at a time when customers might lose access to 911 between shutting down and restarting service -- a circumstance revolutionized by deregulation and alternative technology.