Broadcasters looking to channel share after selling their spectrum in the TV incentive auction can agree to share their spectrum dynamically, so that spectrum is available when one sharing partner needs more bandwidth than another, said Incentive Auction Task Force Policy Counsel Dorann Bunkin on a task force webinar Thursday. All partners in a channel sharing agreement (CSA) always must be able to offer at least one stream of standard definition programming, Bunkin said. “Broadcasters in dozens of markets already transmit top-four network signals on a single 6 MHz channel,” she said. Materials from the webinar will be available on the FCC's Learn website, Bunkin said.
The exclusivity rule and some broadcaster/pay-TV negotiating tactics could be going by the wayside, as some had expected (see 1508110026). FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said Wednesday his office is circulating a set of draft orders tackling retransmission consent rules. The aim is "to bring governance up to date with the practical realities of today’s media landscape and will ensure that consumers remain well-served by our media policies," Wheeler said in a blog post announcing the retrans proposals and other possible rule changes affecting everything from AM radio to station contests. It also, if adopted, would set up a system for market modification for DBS and let local governments, local broadcasters and satellite providers request such market changes.
Chairman Tom Wheeler likely will begin circulating a retransmission consent NPRM this week, as the Sept. 4 deadline set by Congress to launch it looms, New Street Research analyst Jonathan Chaplin emailed investors. The 2014 Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act Reauthorization Act, which became law Dec. 4, gave the FCC nine months to start a rulemaking "to review its totality of the circumstances test for good faith negotiations under clauses 12 (ii) and (iii) of section 325(b)(3)(C) of the Communications Act." An FCC spokesman Tuesday declined to comment on a time frame for an NPRM to be circulated but said the agency "will meet the statutory deadline." While the FCC has to begin the process by Sept. 4, "it did not set a date for completion," Chaplin said Monday, adding that if not tackled within the next 12 months, it may become an item for the next FCC to resolve. While Wheeler's draft likely will recommend dramatic changes in retrans rules, it probably will put limits on the broadcaster practice of requiring cable multichannel video programming distributors to guarantee that networks reach a certain percentage of customers -- a practice that has been criticized by a number of organizations and businesses already advocating for retrans consent rule changes (see 1508100030). The FCC also likely will look kindly on the idea of not allowing the blocking of Internet access to blocked programming during a retrans blackout when the programming is otherwise available, Chaplin said. The agency also might address the nonduplication rule and eliminate the requirement that MVPDs block duplicate carriage of the same program being carried on a nonlocal broadcast signal that is being imported, as that gives broadcasters "a regulatory, extra-contractual mechanism to exclude competing sources of network and syndicated programming on MVPD lineups," Chaplin said. All those changes would not "dramatically shift the leverage between broadcasters and MVPDs" while still giving some help to MVPDs, he said.
Energy efficiency advocates, despite praising a voluntary agreement (VA) to cut set-top box energy use that has averted state and federal rules so far, want regulations on household gear that connects devices to broadband service. The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy and Natural Resources Defense Council agree with multichannel video programming distributors and makers of consumer electronics that the set-top VA that such companies and ACEEE and NRDC signed is a success. But staffers at those energy efficiency advocates and the Consumer Federation of America said in interviews Friday that they want regulators to consider adopting requirements for how much electricity broadband modems, Wi-Fi routers and other home Internet equipment can use.
The cable industry increasingly is pushing for a new regulatory look at retransmission consent rules. Cablevision said the FCC should launch a rulemaking on ways to address such issues as broadcasters forcing affiliated networks into particular tiers and requiring networks to reach a certain percentage of customers. The American Cable Association told the FCC the agency should seek comment on whether certain negotiating tactics it accused broadcasters of employing ultimately harm the public interest. The FCC should "re-examine its existing presumptions that certain types of conduct are consistent with competitive marketplace conditions [and] seek comment on whether these presumptions ... are contributing to current market dysfunctions and thus should be modified or eliminated," ACA said in a filing posted Friday in docket 10-71.
The FCC impermissibly changed its VoIP symmetry rule to allow competitive LECs partnering with over-the-top (OTT) VoIP providers to charge interexchange carriers (IXCs) end-office switching fees for connecting long-distance calls to customers, AT&T argued Thursday in a brief asking a court to overturn a commission declaratory ruling. Alternatively, AT&T asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to disallow the FCC’s decision to require AT&T to retroactively pay CLECs for charges it withheld while their regulatory dispute was pending. The case is AT&T v. FCC, No. 15-1059.
Mediacom is aiming large doses of snark at NAB as it pushes the FCC to retool retransmission consent rules. In a filing posted Monday in docket 10-71, the cable company referenced everything from Star Trek and Flip Wilson's "the Devil made me do it" catchphrase to South Park and the Nazi Party as it attempted to rebut NAB arguments made earlier this month against greater regulatory control over retrans as the agency has begun rulemaking for the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act Reauthorization's Section 103, which covers retrans (see 1507140021). NAB is distracting the FCC by arguing that multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) are bigger bad actors, as "that would simply mean there are two scamps, rather than only one scalawag that the FCC needs to sit in the corner," Mediacom said -- while adding that NAB allegations of MVPD misdeeds such as poor customer service, excessive equipment fees and questionable billing practices are groundless. Mediacom also scoffed at the NAB's much-repeated argument that blackouts are engineered by MVPDs to leverage FCC intervention: "The absurd premise underlying this claim is that poor, gullible, meek and powerless station owners like CBS Corp., Disney, Fox and Sinclair Broadcast Group have been maneuvered and coerced into ordering station blackouts against their will," Mediacom said. The cable company also likened the argument that MVPDs cause blackouts to Germany's framing Poland as the aggressor to legitimize its 1939 invasion. NAB is making "a giant leap" when it argues that since most retransmission consent negotiations are resolved without blackouts, such negotiations do not need FCC intervention. Pointing to Star Trek's Mr. Spock once saying he was needed most of all "among a shipload of illogical humans," Mediacom said he was needed more elsewhere -- "In a roomful of broadcast industry lobbyists relying on assorted logical fallacies to defend the status quo for retransmission consent." NAB did not respond to a message seeking comment Monday.
House Republicans intend to drill down on FCC process overhaul, the broadcast TV incentive auction and its designated entity (DE) rules and the implications of the net neutrality order on privacy, said the GOP memo for a Tuesday House Communications Subcommittee FCC oversight hearing. Chairman Tom Wheeler will push back against the criticisms and say the agency is well on track toward accomplishing all its goals, according to his written testimony, in contrast to concerns Commissioner Ajit Pai plans to raise.
FCC proposals to revise network outage reporting rules drew mixed responses in comments on a March NPRM that were posted Thursday and Friday in docket 15-80. Wireline and wireless carriers welcomed some FCC proposals and opposed others that they said would impose undue reporting burdens on carriers without providing necessary or even useful information. Verizon said the FCC should simplify outage reporting thresholds, apply duties consistently across networks in a competitively neutral and technically feasible way, and focus only on significant network outage events. APCO welcomed an FCC proposal to require reporting of partial 911 outages, but the telcos voiced concern. State regulators generally supported the FCC proposal to share database outage information with states.
Mediacom’s attempt at pushing changes in retransmission consent rules at the FCC likely won't go far, the company acknowledges. But the FCC wasn't necessarily the intended audience when Mediacom this week petitioned the agency for rules largely blocking broadcasters' blackouts (see 1507070061). "I don't think the FCC will take it seriously," said Thomas Larsen, Mediacom group vice president-legal and public affairs. "If I was a betting man, I'd say the FCC sits on their hands. You throw out enough ideas, that's what we're hoping -- somebody [on Capitol Hill] will run with one of them. Maybe down the road a congressman or senator says 'You were told to serve the public; let's make it a requirement free TV is widely available or give us back your spectrum.'"