The FCC exceeds all but one other federal commission in after-hours document issuances, Communications Daily found, a practice that has the effect of delaying reaction by affected parties and that raises transparency concerns. Almost every other business day last quarter, the FCC on average posted something online about an hour after regular hours end at 5:30 p.m. Eastern. Only the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) exceeded during Q2 the 27 items the FCC released after business hours, and most other agencies issued no evening items, we found through Freedom of Information Act and other requests to independent federal commissions with a national purview. Over half of late FCC items were from Chairman Tom Wheeler's office. The FCC released another 32 items between 5 p.m. and 5:29 p.m., also after most agencies stop issuing documents.

The FCC held some dozen events for news media that weren't on the record in the first half of this year, more than any other communications-related federal body. Such commission media events, often "on background" where officials couldn't be identified, numbered twice as many as were fully on the record. Partisan politics (see 1510280062 and 1512150011) and a divided FCC (see 1512150030) appear to be making commission officials more cautious in what they say when their names are attached, said experts who reviewed a Communications Daily database. They said such politics partly reflect a politically divided Washington. That's apparent to a lesser degree at NTIA and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

The FCC has had some success in reducing processing backlogs even as its head count has continued to decline, according to the most recent available agency data. As of year-end 2014, the total number of items pending at the commission for more than six months dropped by more than 37 percent since May 1, 2014, said Chairman Tom Wheeler in a Jan. 21 letter to two key lawmakers. Over that period, the volume of license-related items pending more than six months dropped by 33 percent and the number of applications for review and petitions for reconsideration pending more than six months dropped by more than 12 percent, he said. An FCC spokesman had no comment on the overall performance, but pointed us to some public documents with agency information.

This Communications Daily Special Report "a Portrait of the FCC in a Partisan Era" shows the impact of recently flat FCC budgets and a long-shrinking overall staff, as well as partisanship, on agency operations and more. Subscribers also can now access these six stories online at www.communicationsdaily.com.

There have been many more party-line 3-2 votes at FCC meetings under FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler than under former Chairmen Kevin Martin and Julius Genachowski, a comparison of such votes shows. Using records on the FCC's website and in the Electronic Comment Filing System, Communications Daily tallied votes at FCC meetings in 2008, 2012 and 2014. It found that in 2014, the Wheeler-led commission approved items at FCC open meetings with a party-line vote 11 times, compared with two such votes under Martin in 2008 and just one under Genachowski in 2012.

The FCC Wireline Bureau received generally good marks on its productivity from communications industry representatives we interviewed for this Communications Daily Special Report, even amid gradually declining budgets and staff sizes at the agency overall (see 1512150011). The bureau is seen by most as working hard to generate a large number of regulatory actions on a wide array of complex and contentious issues, with progress in addressing some backlogs. “I can’t think of any specific areas where the Wireline Competition Bureau is lagging,” said Micah Caldwell, ITTA vice president-regulatory affairs. Caldwell was the only person interviewed for this article willing to be cited by name; the rest either requested anonymity or declined to comment altogether on the bureau’s output and performance.

The partisan divide on net neutrality complicates congressional funding of the FCC and has made the annual task of appropriating much harder over the past several years, veteran appropriators of both parties on Capitol Hill told us in recent conversations. The appropriations process for the agency is now intensely political, they said, citing the very different perceptions among Republicans and Democrats of the agency and its missions.

Concerns remain about FCC Enforcement Bureau field office closings, fives months after the agency approved a compromise proposal that avoided some of the closings initially proposed by Chairman Tom Wheeler, who said in July that after five years of flat budgets the agency had little choice.

Industry consolidation has been a dominant factor overhanging how the wireless industry is regulated, especially on transactions policy. The FCC under President Barack Obama's appointees repeatedly has drawn a clear line at four national wireless carriers -- AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon. Industry observers disagree whether that makes sense in the current market.

Service glitches, billing errors and product changes are all but assured as multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) digest a record spree of mergers and acquisitions, many experts said. Some said already-low customer satisfaction for broadband and pay-TV service will worsen during integration of M&A worth about $166 billion. That includes AT&T's now-completed (see 1507240055) takeover of DirecTV, Charter Communications' planned buys of Time Warner Cable and of Bright House Networks, and Altice buying control of Suddenlink. At stake for broadband and video subscribers of these and other ISPs and MVPDs is whether their experiences ever improve from levels that some research finds are lower than any other U.S. industry.