The FCC will postpone by a half year the deadline for broadcasters and cable operators to be able to pass along emergency alerts using new standards from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said commission and industry officials. The deadline to implement Common Alerting Protocol at radio and TV stations and cable systems is 180 days after FEMA finalized CAP, which was Sept. 30, putting the deadline at the end of March. A draft FCC order likely to be finalized soon extends the time to Sept. 30, 2011, agency and industry officials said. The delay had been expected (CD Oct 5 p1).

The GOP Majority Transition Committee doesn’t plan to clarify the party’s House term-limit rule, which appears to prevent Commerce Committee Ranking Member Joe Barton, R-Texas, from becoming committee chairman, said a spokesman for the transition team. That’s despite a letter to the transition team by three former Republican chairmen backing Barton for the job. Meanwhile, Democratic Reps. Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania and Bobby Rush of Illinois said Friday they'll seek the job of ranking member of the Communications Subcommittee.

Netflix may become the new corporate champion of net neutrality now that Google has made its peace with Verizon, industry officials said. In recent months, Netflix has made its first filings with the FCC on issues like net neutrality and opened a Washington lobbying office and hired its first full-time employee in the city. The company’s market clout and ambitious business model make it a formidable presence, analysts and others said.

"We are not looking for additional regulation” on net neutrality, said the head of the EU telecom regulatory group. Revised telecom rules, many of which don’t take effect until June, must be given time to work before further legislation is introduced, John Doherty, chairman of the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications, said Thursday. But if there are significant, persistent problems, the EC won’t be afraid to act, said Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes. They spoke at a joint European Commission-European Parliament summit in Brussels on net neutrality and an open Internet. The discussion will feed into an EC report.

DirecTV and Dish Network could import the signals of far-away TV stations only when subscribers couldn’t get in-market outlets with the same network affiliation using outdoor antennas, under a draft FCC order starting to get attention from lobbyists and commissioners, agency officials said. They said another draft order would let a DBS provider carry stations from adjacent markets that are deemed significantly viewed (SV) in an area if the company sells the subscriber a package of local broadcasts. The drafts are seen by officials inside and outside the FCC as a mixed bag for broadcasters and satellite companies, giving each some of what they had sought in follow-through on the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act. The orders generally comport with rulemaking notices issued this summer by the commission, which has until Nov. 24 to implement STELA.

The FCC is moving into “a very active phase of consumer protection,” in which truth in billing will be “expanded into truth about just about everything,” Chief Joel Gurin of the FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau said Wednesday, at what is expected to be the last meeting of the Consumer Advisory Committee under its current charter. The group is expected to be rechartered next year and work has started toward that, Gurin said.

GENEVA -- Administrations and operators in ITU-T are searching for new approaches to satisfy heavy numbering and addressing demands for machine-to-machine communications, which may strain national numbering resources. M2M applications have increased rapidly in recent years, said a draft report by the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations that defines them as automated data communication between two or more entities.

LTE’s real benefits kick in when a large chunk of spectrum is available, Neville Ray, T-Mobile USA chief technology officer, said at a Wells Fargo Securities investor conference Wednesday. The carrier will move to LTE eventually, but the technology still faces challenges, he said.

"Telco issues will have a higher profile” next Congress than they have in the current one, Ranking Member Joe Barton, R-Texas, of the House Commerce Committee said after a speech Wednesday at the Heritage Foundation. He told us he’s open to hearings to find bipartisan consensus for rewriting the Telecom Act. But if the GOP allows Barton to be committee chairman, repealing the healthcare reform law would be his immediate priority, he said.

SAN FRANCISCO -- As TV programmers online increasingly seek subscription revenue from Internet video distributors, the industry has overlooked the importance of ads to financing the development of premium content, Hulu CEO Jason Kilar said Wednesday. For content owners “the leading source of how you get a return on your investment is through advertising,” he said at the NewTeeVee Live conference. “That’s going to play a very big role in terms of the future of television.” So Hulu is working on offering better ad options for marketers and consumers, he said. The company is on track to sell more than $240 million in ads in 2010, up from $108 million last year and $25 million in 2008, Kilar said. He declined to comment on the prospects for an initial public offering by Hulu.