Obama picks Copps to temporarily chair the FCC

Until President Obama's nominee for the next FCC chairman, replacing the departed Kevin Martin, is confirmed, current Commissioner Michael Copps will assume the temporary role of chairman of a temporarily four-member panel, the White House announced yesterday.

Copps had earlier been reported to be the only Democrat on Pres. Bush's list to replace former chairman Michael Powell. He is generally liked on both sides of the aisle, and yesterday, generally outspoken Commissioner Robert McDowell added his support for the appointment.

But Copps' position on a key issue -- if he has one -- facing the FCC this term, may conflict with what's believed to be the position of Mr. Obama's chosen replacement, former FCC counsel and former Barry Diller right-hand-man Julius Genachowski. Even on his way out, former chairman Martin made clear he was still in favor of regulations that would compel cable TV operators to offer more of their channel packages a la carte. The "skinny" on Genachowski, according to Multichannel News, is that he's against that idea along with other government plans to dictate how CATV does business.

Copps, however, has been a question mark on this issue ever since Martin first turned up the burner on it in early 2008. He's said he's sympathetic to concerns of cable associations that say they don't like having to purchase channel feeds in expensive bundles for resale; on the other hand, he's in favor of diversity in channel selection. So even should Genachowski be confirmed, which is likely, the scales actually may not be tipped the other way on a la carte CATV.