Amendment attempts abounded Tuesday on the draft legislation of the House Communications Subcommittee’s Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act (http://1.usa.gov/1rrPHlS), though most amendments failed to make it into the draft bill that cleared the panel on a voice vote. Democrats succeeded at modifying provisions of the controversial set-top box integration ban, which demands cable operators use CableCARDs instead of built-in security in set-top boxes, in the one bipartisan amendment put to a vote and attached to the draft.
Video regulations need to be reformed to reflect increasing competition, said pay-TV providers, broadcasters and industry associations in comments for the FCC’s 16th video competition report. Commenters such as CEA, NAB, NCTA and the Writer’s Guild of America differed on how the FCC should address the increased competition, clashing over the set-top box integration ban, the future of retransmission consent, program carriage rules and vertically integrated multichannel video programming distributors. “Enforcing regulations premised on supposed video market deficiencies while ignoring the effectively competitive state of the market results in a policy mismatch that is harmful to consumers,” said Free State Foundation President Randolph May.
Section 706 alone can go part of the way toward keeping the Internet open, but Title II reclassification is necessary for the strongest impact, public interest groups said in comments responding to an FCC public notice on potential new net neutrality rules. But CTIA, the Consumer Electronics Association and others argued the level of competition that exists for Internet access means there’s no need for restrictive Internet rules.
The House Communications Subcommittee unsuccessfully scrambled to pull together a compromise on the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act draft bill (http://1.usa.gov/1jhR7Kg) hours before it was scheduled to begin marking up the bill. Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., released the draft earlier this month, and despite initial broadcaster opposition, cobbled together endorsements from NCTA, NAB, Dish Network and DirecTV.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler conceded Monday that an incentive auction has never been tried before and poses a “daunting challenge” for the FCC to get the details right. Wheeler, who spoke at the Brookings Institution, also said the FCC is committed to working with broadcasters to make the auction a success.
A U.S.-championed compromise on a long-anticipated World Intellectual Property Organization treaty updating broadcasters’ signal rights is unlikely to require major changes to U.S. copyright law, said lawyers for the NAB and Public Knowledge. WIPO’s Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) will continue deliberations on the broadcasting treaty at a April 28-May 2 meeting, building on progress it made during negotiations in December (CD Dec 23 p11).
NTIA lent its support to bidirectional sharing, in which federal agencies, the Department of Defense in particular, would have access to commercial spectrum in areas of the country where carriers are not deploying in a particular band. Bidirectional sharing is the flip side of carriers sharing spectrum already in use by federal agencies. The letter, to the FCC, follows filings by carriers last week raising concerns about bidirectional sharing in the AWS-3 band, as the FCC develops auction rules.
Media General’s approximately $2.6 billion deal to buy LIN Media will require divestitures of TV stations, probably in at least five markets, agreed an executive of the companies, foes of broadcaster mergers and acquisitions and investment professionals, in interviews Friday. That day, the companies surprised some M&A watchers by announcing (http://bit.ly/1r81RAt) a deal to create what they say would be the second-largest U.S. pure-play TV station owner (http://bit.ly/NAYAJS). Broadcaster stocks rose, including at one point LIN above the price Media General agreed to pay. Shares fell Monday when a Wall Street analyst downgraded them on concerns M&A would all but halt (CD March 18 p5) amid what’s seen as an FCC crackdown on TV station resource sharing deals.
Many “potential bottlenecks” are involved in repacking broadcasters after the spectrum incentive auction, said an FCC Media Bureau-commissioned report (http://bit.ly/1piNbdY) from Widelity released alongside a request for comments (http://fcc.us/1r7BI4E) on using the report as a basis for a catalog of reimbursable repacking expenses. The report lists the potential costs of the antenna replacements, retunings and engineering procedures expected to be involved in the repacking, and analyzes how those industries will respond to the increased demand it will cause. As broadcasters requested (CD Nov. 5 p3), it also takes some “soft costs” such as attorney fees into account. “This Catalog is not exhaustive, and inclusion or exclusion of a particular category of expenses should not be read to state or imply that the expense will or will not be eligible for reimbursement,” said the bureau in a public notice issued along with the report.
AT&T fired back Friday at a blog post by Netflix CEO Reed Hastings calling for the FCC to include “no-fee” interconnection agreements as part of its revamped net neutrality rules. “Strong net neutrality” would prevent ISPs “from charging a toll for interconnection,” Hastings wrote, and instead require them to “provide sufficient access to their network without charge” (http://nflx.it/1pgX4cd).