Clyburn Tells ACA She’s ‘Cop on the Beat’ on Comcast-NBCU Conditions
"Count on me to be that cop on the beat,” FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said Tuesday on monitoring Comcast’s compliance with FCC conditions on its purchase of control in NBCUniversal. “I expect to hear from you of anything that escapes my attention,” she told the American Cable Association. “Operators like you needed certain protections in place and available remedies to utilize,” including baseball-style arbitration with Comcast over access to its programming, she told the conference. A curb that she pushed for requires the dispute resolution, in which an arbitrator chooses one of the sides’ final offers.
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The FCC needs in all rulemakings to look out for small businesses including the smaller cable operators that make up the ACA, Clyburn said. She said she'll make sure that’s done in rulemakings affecting the cable industry: Follow-through on the CALM Act to limit the volume of ads compared to that on shows during which they air; AllVid, to require pay-TV providers to connect to consumer electronics equipment without CableCARDs; and mandating video descriptions to be carried by TV stations and subscription-TV providers. “The FCC must make sure that these things do not have a disproportional impact on small business,” Clyburn said. She said in Q-and-A that she'll keep small cable operators in mind in a rulemaking on retransmission consent deals between subscription-video providers and TV stations.
The FCC is gathering information to issue a rulemaking notice on the CALM Act, Clyburn said. She noted that the law allows waivers for financial hardship. “I recognize this rulemaking may place a burden on you,” Clyburn said. “But I look for every possible way to lessen the load on small companies each time I review the language of any regulation."
The FCC should let “market forces” work in connection with retrans, Clyburn said. “But if the market isn’t working, we need to consider taking appropriate steps.” She said many “of our elected friends up the road” on Capitol Hill “are getting pretty antsy about retrans.” The commission continues “to hear interest from the Hill whenever another face-off is looming,” as happened last year when TV stations owned by News Corp. were blacked out on Cablevision, Clyburn said.
Clyburn also said residents of the most rural areas should have access to the services available in the biggest cities. “Rural residents deserve high-speed broadband, HDTV” and other newer services, “just as much as the most connected, most well-to-do Manhattanite,” she said: “I implore you to keep doing what you can” to keep subscribers’ prices down.