The philosophy behind the Senate’s Local Choice proposal...
The philosophy behind the Senate’s Local Choice proposal is inherently the same as the one behind net neutrality rules, said Center for Boundless Innovation in Technology Executive Director Fred Campbell in a Wednesday blog post, citing what he sees as…
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a potential contradiction for Senate Commerce Committee ranking member John Thune, R-S.D., one of Local Choice’s backers. Thune, an opponent of net neutrality rules, floated the Local Choice proposal earlier this month with Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. Local Choice would overhaul retransmission consent rules and try to end TV blackouts, creating an a la carte model for broadcast stations. “Thune’s embrace of the intellectual basis for the ‘Local Choice proposal’ -- which inherently distrusts market negotiations between the operators of cable ‘pipes’ and content providers -- represents a tipping point in the battle over net neutrality,” Campbell said (http://bit.ly/1C73vI3). “If Thune doesn’t believe market negotiations are capable of producing fair outcomes for pay-TV customers with respect to television content, how does he plan to justify relying on the free market to produce fair outcomes for Internet content?” Local Choice “would also play directly into the hands of net neutrality advocates, who have always wanted to eliminate the opportunity for market negotiations between cable ‘pipes’ and the providers of Internet content,” Campbell said. Rockefeller and Thune indicated they'll attach Local Choice to their Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act reauthorization legislation next month, sparking a frenzy of lobbying in recent weeks.