Charter/TWC/BHN Appproval Needs To Neuter New Charter's Ability To Hurt OVD, Sling TV Says
Any Charter/TWC/BHN approval needs to be predicated on blunting the tools at New Charter's disposal for hurting emerging over-the-top services -- like Sling TV -- Sling TV CEO Roger Lynch and other Dish Network executives told FCC staff in a…
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meeting Wednesday. Those tools are usage-based pricing, interconnection fees, bundled pricing, the additional leverage it will have in negotiating contractual restrictions with programmers and its ability to work around open Internet rules to discriminate against online video distributors (OVD), Dish said at the meeting, according to an ex parte filing to be posted in docket 15-149. Charter Communications buying Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable "will give the combined company innumerable ways through which to thwart competing OVDs," Dish said as it also repeated its call for the FCC to deny the merger. Agency officials at the meeting included Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake and Owen Kendler, who's heading the FCC working team overseeing the deals' review. Dish individually and as part of the Stop Mega Cable coalition has repeatedly called for the FCC to reject the Charter/TWC/BHN deals (see 1602240030 and 1601050039). Charter didn't comment, but in an ex parte filing Friday in the docket it recapped two days of meetings with FCC staff to talk about New Charter commitments regarding settlement-free interconnection, broadband service without usage-based billing or data caps and its low-income residential broadband offering. The meeting's roster included Kendler and FCC General Counsel Jon Sallet and such Charter executives as Catherine Bohigian, executive vice president-government affairs. Some experts have said Sallet's increased involvement in the New Charter review indicates FCC approval with conditions may be near (see 1602190062). The FCC's unofficial 180-day shot clock for reviewing Charter/TWC/BHN stood Friday at 153 days.