Set-top Proposal Proponents Meet With FCC CTO

Any tech standards that comply with FCC-proposed rules for third-party set-top boxes should “provide for competitive interoperability across all" multichannel video programming distributor systems, said officials from the Computer & Communications Industry Association, Google, Hauppauge, Incompas, Public Knowledge and TiVo, representing the Consumer Video Choice Coalition in a meeting Tuesday with Media Bureau staff and FCC Chief Technology Officer Scott Jordan, said an ex parte filing posted Friday in docket 16-42. The CVCC representatives said device provider certifications are a “feasible” way to “affirm adherence” to rules on privacy, emergency alerting and children's programming. The FCC should act on a pending petition to reinstate encoding rules, the CVCC said. The FCC shouldn't wait for the completion of a diversity study to change the set-top rules, said GFNTV, National Black Programming Consortium, New England Broadband, Townsend Group and iSwop Networks in a letter to Chairman Tom Wheeler Tuesday. “Diverse programmers and cable networks have repeatedly made a compelling case that the current system of little to no minority ownership and programming is abhorrent and deserving of a solution such as that proposed in the NPRM,” the letter said.