Residents in and around Albuquerque will gather for a town hall meeting to debate Internet policy and legislation. The meeting, the second such event in less than six months, comes at a difficult time in the battle over the future of the Internet. The FCC has largely gone silent on the issue, and prospects for legislation in next year's Congress now appear dim.

Europe doesn't have a Net Neutrality problem. If you don't believe me, just ask the Internet providers. Of course, regulators and consumer groups don't see it that way.

Comcast is expected to announce a new management lineup for NBC Universal, in anticipation of completing its takeover of the company by the end of the year or by early next year. But at least one senator says strongly that the deal should be blocked by the FCC, which must officially sanction the merger before it can be consummated.

With Comcast and NBC's immense lobbying power, there's virtually no chance their merger will be denied by regulators -- and while there will be some conditions, recent history suggests the conditions may only give a quick nod to substantive consumer protections.

Some groups critical of the proposed Comcast-NBC joint venture are also criticizing pre-merger personnel moves by the two companies in anticipation that the deal will be approved by regulators.

The Local Community Radio Act, which passed the House last December and has widespread support in the Senate, bends over backward to address broadcasters' objections to the legislation. The bill's sponsors even agreed to an amendment requiring a study of the new stations' economic impact on small business. The legislation seemed poised to pass the Senate -- and then a new problem appeared.

We're now in the waning days of the lame duck Congress and because of backroom machinations of a few senators, the fate of Low Power FM radio hangs in the balance.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour has proposed an average 8-percent reduction in state spending for the coming fiscal year, and has recommended gradually weaning Mississippi Public Broadcasting off of state funding.

This was to be a year of convalescence for newspapers, not a total recovery, but a dramatic improvement on the dismal results of 2008 and 2009. However, with third-quarter earnings in and just seven weeks left in 2010, the industry's vital signs are distinctly mixed.

The wedding of the Daily Beast and Newsweek is over. On to the honeymoon. The combined companies are losing an estimated $100,000 every day, so the critical question is this: How much job cutting, circulation boosting and ad selling will be enough to make it work?

Tribune Co. Chairman Sam Zell said that he doesn't see himself having an operating role in the media company after it exits bankruptcy. "I think when we're done with the bankruptcy process, I will turn it over to whoever the creditors decide they want to run it, and wish them a lot of good luck," Zell told CNBC.

In a rare display of agreement with his time slot rival Keith Olbermann, Bill O'Reilly struck back at Ted Koppel, asking the veteran anchor to give an example of when he had lied on the air. In a recent op-ed, Koppel singled out O'Reilly and Olbermann as symptomatic of the "death of real news," and described cable news as a landscape where partisans "flaunt opinions as though they were facts."