FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is reassuring net neutrality advocates that Title II reclassification of broadband remains an option if proposed net neutrality rules aren’t enough. Industry observers said in interviews that Wheeler’s latest comments (CD April 30 p4) probably aren’t an idle threat, though it remains a big question whether reclassifying broadband is even possible in the remaining 33 months of the Obama presidency. Wheeler circulated a revised version of his net neutrality NPRM Tuesday, agency officials confirmed.
There is support among cable companies and AT&T for making video programmers liable for closed captioning production compliance, while content companies, like CBS and The Walt Disney Company, urged the FCC to reject such a “burden-shifting” model proposed by Comcast in reply comments on closed captioning requirements. Comments on the further notice of proposed rulemaking (FNPRM) were due this week.
Many players in the media landscape that want video regulations that foster increased competition remained at odds over CableCARD and program access rules, in replies on the 16th FCC video competition report. Verizon again stated its case against technology mandates like CableCARD, while TiVo continued its support for a successor to that regime. DirecTV and NCTA battled over whether there’s a need to maintain program access rules. Replies were posted Tuesday in docket 14-16, and initial comments had broken down along similar fault lines (CD March 25 p12).
The “media universe” can no longer be viewed through “historic silos,” said FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn in a blog post Tuesday about attending the NAB Show last week (http://fcc.us/1eFJ4K3). “The demarcation between over-the-air, cable, internet and satellite broadcasting makes erstwhile legacy distinctions much harder to maintain,” said Clyburn. She was “pressed” at the show by network affiliates on the FCC’s recent ruling to attribute joint sales agreements, and conceded that the FCC’s delay in releasing the final text of that rulemaking meant she was unable to respond to broadcasters on the rule change. “The broadcasters were left to question our words and our wisdom pretty much unanswered,” she said. Clyburn said a walk on the show floor led to her being impressed by “Next Radio and 8K technology.” Broadcasters “play a unique and vital role in our local communities,” Clyburn said.
With the Internet-enabled ubiquity of high-speed communications, definitions of the FCC’s once sector-specific market have expanded to touch other government agencies, including the FTC. This year’s U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit decision striking down some FCC net neutrality rules (CD Jan 15 p1), but empowering the commission to regulate the Internet under Telecom Act Section 706, further overlapped the agencies, said some observers in interviews.
LAS VEGAS -- The Media Bureau will recommend the FCC issue a rulemaking on the effects of the incentive auction on low-power TV after the auction report and order is issued this spring, bureau Chief Bill Lake told low-power broadcasters at an information session Monday at the 2014 NAB Show. The proposed rulemaking notice is designed to answer questions about the impact of the auction on LPTV that the bureau can’t, Lake said. It would consider extending DTV transition deadlines for LPTV, propose authorizing voluntary LP-channel sharing, seek comment on creating digital replacement translators for full-power stations affected by the auction, and discuss offering LP stations the chance to use the FCC’s repacking software to find new channels, Lake said.
The FCC new 2014 quadrennial review doesn’t appear likely to lead to much change in broadcast ownership rules, said several broadcast attorneys, public interest officials and a broadcast executive in interviews. Though the actual text of Monday’s further rulemaking notice launching the review hasn’t been released, the information released by the FCC makes it look to many industry observers as though Chairman Tom Wheeler is kicking the can down the road on issues like cross-ownership, several told us. “The FNPRM for the 2014 quadrennial review recommends retaining the FCC’s existing ownership rules virtually intact,” said blog of the Wiley Rein law firm.
The FCC unanimously approved an order that prohibits competing top-four TV stations in a market from engaging in joint retransmission consent negotiations, as was expected (CD March 28 p1). The FCC is “leveling the negotiating table,” Chairman Tom Wheeler said Monday at the agency’s monthly meeting Monday. The order is aimed at helping to “curtail practices that would put upward pressure on cable companies,” he said. Joint negotiation by these stations “leads to higher retransmission consent fees because the practice reduces competition between the stations,” the Media Bureau said in a news release (http://bit.ly/1kjYotA). The commission also agreed to seek comment on a further notice of proposed rulemaking that looks at whether to eliminate or modify network non-duplication and syndicated exclusivity rules.
Expect more channels to be blacked out to broadband and TV subscribers of multichannel video programming distributors, as MVPDs increasingly say no to programmer requests to pay more for content, said subscription-video industry executives in interviews Monday. That was as a midnight deadline was nearing for all of Viacom’s cable channels to be carried on small- and mid-sized MVPDs that jointly bargain for a programming contract under the National Cable Television Cooperative (CD March 26 p16). NCTC said a blackout of channels like Comedy Central, MTV and Nickelodeon would be a first in the co-op’s 30-year history. The down-to-the-wire talks between NCTC, representing MVPDs with about 5.2 million subscribers, and Viacom, one of the biggest cable programmers, may foreshadow what’s to come as other pay-TV deals with additional programmers expire, said cable and telecom executives.
Enforcement is emerging as one of the biggest challenges facing industry as spectrum sharing becomes the rule rather than the exception, members of the Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee said Friday at the group’s meeting at NTIA.