Disfunction Junction

It seemed like old times at the FCC Tuesday, like those days when a meeting would be called for 9:30, the commissioners would surface and disappear at their desks in the meeting room like answers in a plastic eightball when you shake it up, then the meeting would either start eight hours late or, eventually, be called on account of a failure to communicate at the Federal Communications Commission (irony alert).

With some reporters already having made plane reservations for Nashville, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has apparently pulled the low-power must-carry item from the agenda after scheduling it but failing to get the votes. to pass it in the form he sought.

I say "apparently" because that is according to sources at the FCC, not an official agenda notice. The meeting is in Nashville to accommodate a childhood obesity forum there, which four of the five commissioners are scheduled to attend.

Reporters know enough to make their plans in pencil when it comes to the FCC, but meetings lately have been running on time, and while items get pulled all the time, as recently as this morning at least one of the commissioners wasn’t sure of the status of the low-power item or of the meeting itself, which is tough for planning purposes when the meeting is hours away in another city