Comcast and the Tennis Channel each have incentives to settle their cable program carriage dispute, which is slated to go before an FCC judge this month if they don’t enter arbitration or mediation (CD Oct 6 p9), industry lawyers and executives not involved in the case told us Thursday. Some of them said Comcast’s plan to buy control of NBC Universal is one reason for the cable operator to settle with the Tennis Channel, to avoid having the programming dispute become part of or muddy FCC consideration of the deal. That the deal is pending before the FCC may have been a reason the Media Bureau this week set Tennis Channel v. Comcast, which the programmer filed in January, for hearing by an administrative law judge, speculated agency and industry officials.
SAN FRANCISCO -- Improved video quality and local content provided by TV stations broadcasting mobile signals could help boost the audience for mobile video and increase the amount of time viewers spend watching video on mobile devices, said broadcast executives pushing the technology. An average mobile video viewer watches now VoD or streaming video content for 30 minutes a day, said Sam Matheny, general manager of Capitol Broadcasting’s News Over Wireless. “If you're able to put this HD quality, no buffering signal on our handset, we really think we're going to be able to dramatically increase that."
Small carriers and their associations, pressing the FCC to impose interoperability mandates on devices that will make use of 700 MHz spectrum, said they're making headway at the commission and at the White House. Smaller carriers said that, based on their discussions with equipment makers, handsets could prove expensive and difficult to find without this requirement. A few view this as their top issue now before the FCC.
Whether Europe has a net neutrality problem, and if so what the European Commission should do about it, remains far from resolved, judging from several responses to an EC public consultation on the issues. The inquiry closed Sept. 30 and comments haven’t yet been posted. The position taken by telecom companies and ISPs -- which say brisk competition among providers precludes a need for regulation -- is clearly at odds with that of digital rights activists and public broadcasters that say rules may be necessary to keep the Internet open.
The past year’s net neutrality debate has featured “tortured semantics” from those who seek to subject the delivery of broadband to rules that the rest of the Internet doesn’t face, FCC Commissioner Meredith Baker said. She mentioned net neutrality in a dinner speech to the Media Institute in Washington. As with net neutrality, Baker said the government should keep to the sidelines for over-the-top Web content watched on TVs, as companies develop new features for such entertainment. Government and industry should be more active in combating online piracy, she said. At the awards dinner, News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch lamented the state of U.S. public schools and supported higher-quality technology for them.
HOLLYWOOD -- The effort by NAB and RIAA to mandate wireless devices be manufactured with an FM radio chip is a transparent “poison pill” intended to derail radio performance royalties, said CEA Senior Vice President Michael Petricone at the Digital Music West conference. CEA originally took no official position on the issue of radio royalties until the electronics industry was involved through the back door, he said.
Politics shouldn’t hold up creation of a Digital Literacy Corps similar to AmeriCorps to teach digital literacy skills, FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said in a Broadband US TV webcast Thursday. The proposed program would require funding from Congress, but Clyburn expects bipartisan support, she said. Meanwhile, the FCC is eager to implement provisions of an accessibility bill to be signed into law Friday afternoon, said Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau Deputy Chief Karen Strauss.
There are lucrative opportunities in communications for companies looking beyond the regulatory impasse on Capitol Hill, speakers said Wednesday at a summit sponsored by the Institute for Policy Innovation. “2010 is about mobilizing voice, data, music, you name it,” said Veronica Bloodworth, a vice president at AT&T. “Customer usage is driving development and we see this in the growth of netbooks and mobility Internet devices.” With plans for more than $18 billion in capital expenditures by the end of 2010, Bloodworth said wireless expansion is AT&T’s number one investment priority.
White House aide Phil Weiser told the 4G Americas conference Wednesday he agrees with industry concerns that the U.S. has fallen behind other countries on the amount of spectrum available for mobile broadband. Weiser cited carrier complaints that the German government recently auctioned an additional 300 MHz of spectrum, while the next big U.S. auction could be years away.
Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, said Wednesday he will seek the chairmanship of the House Commerce Committee if Republicans retake the House in the November elections. Barton’s top priority: stopping the FCC from reclassifying broadband and regulating the Internet, he said.