The Federal Communications Commission is investigating News Corp.'s operation of its television station WWOR-TV in Seacaucus, N.J. Biggest issues: complaints that the station doesn't provide an adequate amount of New Jersey coverage, or enough news or public affairs programming altogether, according to the the L.A. Times.

Of all the words written about the phenomenon of IBM's supercomputer Watson defeating two humans on "Jeopardy" this week, we prefer those of Ken Jennings, who was actually there. Is Watson "really head and shoulders above the best human 'Jeopardy!' players, the way it looked on TV? Not by a long shot," writes Jennings, the champion of 74 straight"Jeopardy" matches who was bested by Watson, in a New York Daily News piece. "So take heart, fellow carbon-based life forms! Watson may be an intimidating quiz show presence, but it needed more than smarts to get the win. It also …

Jim Romanovich of Associated Television International is looking to sell re-edited versions of the Internet soap "The Bay" as a half-hour syndicated or cable program for 2012. "Even though more and more people are gravitating to the web, TV is still the place to reach the widest audience," says Romanovich in TV Guide.

Report are in that Charlie Sheen will be going back to production on "Two And A Half Men," soon, but in light of all the back and forthing going on -- and in light of the fact that this is the number-one show we're talking about -- TV critic Alan Sepinwall asks why the producers just don't shoot around the trouble-making, headline-grabbing star. He also quotes from a post by NPR's Linda Holmes in which she asks, "Is there any point at which you do not keep a guy in a high-profile job in family entertainment simply because using …

"The most important outcome of this week's emerging tussle between Apple and Google is that we are about to have an intense and financially difficult conversation about what a fair price is for delivering customers to developers, publishers, and producers," writes Forrester analyst James McQuivey in a well-reasoned post in Paid Content.He argues that the ultimate platform fee will probably be below 10% -- but not until after 2012, when there are enough competitive products on the market. In the meantime, he sees Google's announcement of a rate of 10% to Apple's 30% as providing "frazzled content companies with some …

Cheering reports about CBS' revenue for 2010 could still signal "heated negotiations with affiliates" over the issue of reverse compensation: "the network taking some percentage of affiliates' retransmission dollars," according to TV New Check. While retransmission fees are but a tiny percentage of CBS' total revenue, President-CEO Leslie Moonves expects them to more than double by 2013, from $100 million to $250 million -- and that's not even counting the affiliates' share. Expect the issue to flare up, as it has recently for Fox.

Many magazines are avoiding iPad subscription deals with Apple to protest against Apple's taking a 30% cut -- or, according to Ad Age's Nat Ives, because subscribers must give their consent before providing any info about themselves -- the basic currency of publisher-advertiser deals. Still, three magazines that have already agreed to Apple's terms for Pad subscription deals -- Elle, Popular Science, and Nylon -- discuss the reasons why. At Elle, for example, working with Apple beats the expenses of creating an e-commerce platform of its own for iPad subscriptions.

The Vanity Fair Daily blog rates the "product placement efficiency" of photo captions that appeared in various magaines illustrating Fashion Week events. The formula measured length of sentence versus number of product placements. One favorite: "Brooke Shields sipped Diet Pepsi from a Jonathan Adler designed straw at Friday's Pepsi Style Studio event in NYC."

Product placement will be allowed on U.K. television for the first time at the end of the month -- and, unlike its U.S. version, any segments with such placements must be clearly identified to viewers with a specially designed logo.The new product placement rules "will enable commercial broadcasters to access new sources of revenue, whilst providing protection for audiences," according to a media regulator. (Love the "whilst" in that quote.)

Optimists abound at Comcast, according to All Things Digital's Peter Kafka, who reports on the company's earnings call. Though it again lost cable subscribers -- 135,000, to be exact -- that loss was minimized, with company reps playing up the fact that the decrease was lower than losses of a year ago -- as well as last quarter's. And this time, unlike previous earnings calls, there was no talk of cord-cutting, either by analysts or reporters."The cable industry has had a consistent response [to such talk]: Any drop in cable subs has to do with increased competition and a crummy …