FCC To Be More Transparent
The FCC announced today that they would, effective immediately, publish a list of “Items In Circulation” on their website. The listing will be updated weekly and is intended to make public when certain issues have been circulated within the commission as they await action by the full commission.
Of particular interest to satellite radio watchers, the issue regarding the “Establishment of Rules and Policies for the Digital Audio Radio Satellite Service in the 2310-2360 MHz Frequency Band” was circulated on November 20, 2007.
The FCC press release states that the new policy is in direct response to a report issued by the Government Accountability Office in October of this year, and is an effort to make the rule-making process as fair and transparent as possible. Chairman Martin and the commission have come under some fire from legislators for inconsistencies in procedures.
Position – Long Sirius, XM
What’s more important about that new FCC webpage — is what is NOT up there.
The Docket you referred to in your post for satellite radio, is Docket #95-91, which is the open docket for the “Establishment of DARS Rules…” The “95″ stands for 1995, the year it was originally created — and the “91″ is the Docket number from that particular year. This Docket will remain open until the FCC finalizes the rules for the Repeaters — which as you know has been a long running issue between several intrusted parties.
However, this is not the Docket regarding the merger.
The Docket for the merger is #07-57. Which is the Consolidate Application for the transfer of control of XM to Sirius. I believe it is titled, “Applications of XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc., Transferor, and Sirius Satellite Radio Inc., Transferee, For Consent to Transfer Control.”
What is interesting about this new FCC webpage is that, no-where on the list of open Dockets do you see the Consolidated License Transfer application for XM and Sirius. Nada.
So that means one of two things — that either the “Commission Level” info regarding the merger has not been distributed to the commissioners for action yet; or they have already voted on the merger. If it is the former, then it could be SOME time before the commissioners get through all the “commission level” info, before they finally take action (vote). If it is the latter (which I believe it could be) — then they are likely in the final stages and drafting up the Final Order on the Application. These responses can be quite lengthy and take some time to get together.
The reason I believe they are past that stage is because, they are now 181 days (past due) into a very public merger… they can ill afford to “sit” on this. And I suspect the Final Order will be VERY lengthy — recall the length of the original Order on the establishment of DARS… and how many responses the FCC had respond to in it?
Time will tell. There has been some talk with my friends that the DOJ and FCC could be co-ordinating an announcement together… so we will see.
Regardless… the ommission of Docket #07-57 from that list of distributed and open dockets — is very interesting to me…
Homer….
I am aware that docket 95-91 is not merger specific. However, it is interesting that after all of this time, there is some activity on this issue.
There have been comments from WCS and others in the merger proceeding that emphatically seek that this issue be resolved either before or with the merger decision.
Whether the FCC takes those requests to heart is another matter, but I find it interesting that while the merger decision is being weighed, that these other “related issues” are being dealt with as well.
The fact that the FCC item on DARS rules and policies was circulated on 11/20 is interesting. Thats because (a) stockholders approved the merger 11/13 (b) and 11/06 was when DOJ approval rumors started making their way