Cable operator assurances that they will continue to...

Cable operator assurances that they will continue to provide and support CableCARDs, even though FCC requirements that they do so were struck down, “do not rise anywhere near the level of certainty required for a retail market to exist,” said TiVo in a filing Friday in docket 97-80 (http://bit.ly/1f06GET). NCTA and others had commented on TiVo’s petition to have the rules reinstated that there’s no evidence companies have slackened their CableCARD support since the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit’s EchoStar decision struck them down (CD Sept 19 p8). TiVo said that’s not so. The company’s internal surveys on CableCARD compliance following EchoStar “show a drop in the percentage of MSOs offering discounts off their bundled prices for customer-owned DVRs” and more cable operators “requiring provider-only installations of CableCARDs,” said TiVo. “One has to wonder why NCTA is opposed to the reinstatement of the CableCARD standard if cable operators plan to comply with the rule by continuing to provide CableCARDs.” NCTA said the CableCARD rules are an “anachronism” due to the competitive media market, where customers have many choices outside of cable. However, TiVo argued that on-demand video services and products such as Xbox and Roku are complements to multichannel video programming distributors rather than competitors, pointing to a reported deal that’s in the works for Netflix to become available on set-top boxes as evidence. “These negotiations are further proof that prominent [online video distributors] OVDs like Netflix are not viable competitors to MVPDs and are not viewed as alternatives by consumers,” said TiVo. NCTA again said Friday that the commission shouldn’t reinstate the CableCARD rules, and said the EchoStar decision means the commission doesn’t have the authority to do so. If the commission does issue an NPRM based on TiVo’s request, NCTA said the rulemaking should include consideration of an automatic three- to five-year sunset for the reinstated rules. TiVo said it would support a sunset clause if it was conditional on a “successor solution” being in place. “If the Commission were to sunset the CableCARD standard prior to a successor solution being in place, it will be failing to live up to its mandate,” said TiVo. Without the CableCARD encoding rules, “nothing would prevent programming interests, through retransmission consent negotiations, from imposing unreasonable restrictions on consumers’ use of programming,” said TiVo. CEA, the AllVid Tech Company Alliance and TiVo said any rulemaking on this issue that considers more than the relief sought by TiVo should propose a specific successor interface for CableCARD, said their filings. CableCARD requirements could be further knocked down by a House bill introduced last month by Communications Subcommittee Vice Chairman Bob Latta, R-Ohio (CD Sept 30 p6). No hearings for the bill have been scheduled.