Wheeler Working With Clyburn, Rush on Minority Entrepreneur Workshop
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is working with Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., to create an FCC workshop to bring together minority entrepreneurs with companies and individuals who can provide them with funding, Wheeler said Tuesday in a pre-recorded video presentation at a Minority Media and Telecommunications Council conference. Along with providing more opportunities to minorities, speakers at MMTC discussed the lack of minority representation in the leadership of technology companies, legislative efforts to update the Communications Act and the FCC’s recent waiver to Grain Management (CD July 29 p1).
Wheeler meanwhile is pressing for an end to a carriage-price dispute that’s meant some in the Los Angeles area can’t watch all Dodgers games. He was to have a conference call with Rep. Tony Cárdenas, D-Calif., after the MMTC event concerning Time Warner Cable and its Los Angeles Dodgers channel, Cárdenas said. Wheeler contacted him asking for the meeting after receiving a letter from Cárdenas and other Democrats about the matter, Cárdenas said. He said lawmakers, constituents and the FCC need to bring “substantive pressure to bear” on large media companies that “feed off of every community in America.”
Wheeler sent a three-page letter to Time Warner Cable CEO Rob Marcus Tuesday outlining his “strong concern about how your actions appear to have created the inability of consumers in the Los Angeles area to watch televised games of the Los Angeles Dodgers.” He asked Marcus to provide the agency with written explanation of its proposed arbitration process and what Time Warner Cable will do if arbitration is not successful, all within 10 calendar days. Wheeler called Cárdenas and House Energy and Commerce Committee ranking member Henry Waxman, D-Calif., “to discuss the ongoing dispute” on Tuesday, an FCC spokeswoman confirmed to us.
"The FCC will continue to monitor this dispute closely and will intervene as appropriate,” Wheeler told Marcus. “Inaction is no longer acceptable.” Wheeler called Marcus to discuss the issue before sending the letter, the agency spokeswoman said. Time Warner Cable noted in a statement that it prefers “to reach agreements through private business negotiations, but given the current circumstance, we are willing to agree to binding arbitration and to allow DirecTV customers to watch the Dodgers games while the arbitration is concluded.” During the call with Wheeler, Cárdenas “reiterated his desire for all of the companies involved to come together and find a solution that is fair to consumers,” his office said in a news release (http://1.usa.gov/1nRUa1O).
The FCC should step in to mediate in the dispute, which has left “thousands of baseball fans” without SportsNet LA, Cárdenas wrote the agency last week (http://1.usa.gov/1o9v2ha). Seven other House Democrats from California signed onto the letter. “We have concerns that the current dispute may set a precedent for vertically integrated companies to hold the consumer hostage to assert unfair market dominance,” the lawmakers said. Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., led a letter of Los Angeles lawmakers Monday to Time Warner Cable and DirecTV requesting the companies enter binding arbitration (http://1.usa.gov/1nZJaOi).
"We're grateful for the FCC’s intervention and happy to work with them to gain carriage for the Dodgers -- that has been our goal all along,” said a Time Warner Cable spokesman of Wheeler’s letter. “We hope that Chairman Wheeler is making similar inquiries of DirecTV and other LA television distributors to determine their rationale for refusing to carry SportsNet LA, which we have offered at terms similar to other regional sports networks, including those owned by DirecTV. We look forward to a productive discussion.”
Diversity Sought
On lack of access to capital, that is one of the biggest barriers for those seeking opportunities in the “new revolution” of the Internet, Wheeler said. The planned workshop and Wednesday’s FCC conference on supplier diversity (http://fcc.us/1uEutWb) will connect small-business owners with representatives from technology companies, because increasing ownership diversity is “not just about opening doors to government programs,” Wheeler said.
Large media companies have not done enough to encourage diversity in their own leadership, said Cardenas and former NTIA Administrator Larry Irving. “How can you take our money and ignore us?” asked Cardenas. “You have a better chance of finding a Latino at a KKK meeting than at a board meeting in Silicon Valley.” The Internet Association had no immediate comment. Calling the tech and media industries “monochromatic and unapologetic about it,” Irving said that to gain influence, minorities should make sure progressives and Democrats know that they need minority votes for their agendas to succeed.
Groups like MMTC and the constituencies they represent should remain engaged in the legislative effort to rewrite the Communications Act, said Rush Senior Policy Counsel Timothy Robinson. The House Energy and Commerce Committee will spend the rest of the current Congress gathering information on the rewrite, through white papers and the resulting feedback, said the committee’s Chief Counsel for Communications David Redl.
The rewrite effort or an FCC rulemaking would have been better venues to address issues with the FCC designated entity rules than the Grain waiver, Redl said. He described the waiver as changing or striking down parts of the DE rule, a point repeatedly disputed by Shawn Chang, the committee’s chief Democratic counsel on communications and technology policy. “The DE rules remain intact,” Chang said. He called the furor over the Grain waiver “one of those situations where the commission can do no right.” If the FCC wanted to change the rules, “they have the tools to do so,” Redl said.