The Federal Communications Commission is preparing to scale back a program that gives preference to women and members of minority groups in awarding valuable licenses for wireless communications, agency officials said today.

In the process, it gave the company a "pioneer's preference" that entitles it to a potentially valuable nationwide license.

The West Hartford toy maker also faces the possibility of losing its valuable license to market Cabbage Patch Kids products and dolls.

That subsidiary, the Norilsk Mining Company, produces most of Norilsk's revenue and owns all its valuable licenses.

Tobacco is Malawi's only major cash crop, and the doctor amassed a fortune by granting himself valuable licenses to grow it.

Late this year, a set of potentially more valuable licenses, for personal communications services, will go on the block.

Sixty-three of the more valuable licenses in the auction have been bogged down in years of litigation and lobbying.

The court's decision clouds the landscape in the battle among the nation's largest telecommunications companies for valuable licenses that are necessary both for expanding cell phone service and offering new wireless Internet products.

He came up with ways to increase the number of medallions -the artificially scarce, highly valuable licenses that breed inefficiency and corruption.

But holders of the most valuable licenses also plan more elaborate networks that would allow people to type messages on their computers or hand-held communicators and transmit them anywhere in the country.