Cable Customer Emails, Carriage Election Notifications Seen on Different Paths
Odds are good the FCC will let cable operators opt for electronic notifications instead of the mail for some customer notifications, agency and industry officials told us. Unclear is how far the agency will go. How the agency will deal with the more contentious issue that's part of the same NPRM about carriage election notifications isn't clear, and the agency itself might not have a direction, they said.
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NAB considers emailing notifications to subscribers likely. In a docket 17-317 filing last week, on a phone call with the Media Bureau, the group said the FCC is likely to adopt rules letting MVPDs provide many of the required customer notices via email or website postings. The association asked it to use online means to cut burdens on broadcasters -- letting them satisfy the notice requirement by putting election notifications in their electronic public inspection files. It said any other approach to election notifications results in unnecessary errors, contested elections and some cable operators trying "to play 'gotcha'" by carrying stations for free while still charging consumers for access.
A broadcast executive said the agency is likely to make some changes to the rules for electronic notifications and carriage election notifications but seemingly hasn't decided exactly what or how far those will go. Because of that, the proceeding is more likely to show up on the October or November commissioners' meeting agenda and isn't likely for the September, he said. The FCC didn't comment.
Officials said the NPRM commissioners adopted 5-0 at the December meeting (see 1712140054) doesn't seem a huge agency priority at the moment because there haven't been notable discussions on the eighth floor. One said the NPRM on electronic notifications had been pretty noncontroversial and could likely go forward without much problem.
That fall time frame wouldn't be surprising, given the time that has passed in the proceeding, a cable executive said. It's likely the agency will move on emailing notices, which has been largely noncontroversial and has gotten pushes from the cable industry such as NCTA (see 1706130007), the cabler said.
The election notifications portion has been more contentious, the cable executive said. NAB and the cable industry have been at odds (see 1805220078); they didn't comment. That conflict raises the question of whether the FCC makes any changes to that portion of the rules, or even bifurcates the NPRM and handles the low-hanging fruit of email notifications first, the cabler said. He said one difficulty in the agency acting on carriage election notifications is the wide gap of largely irreconcilable differences between cable's position and broadcasters, with each side seeing the other's proposals seen as burden shifting. Since there's no clear route on what to do, the regulator may opt to do nothing or not move on election notifications on the same time frame as emailing of notices, he said.