FCC Pursuing Set-Top Apps Proposal Sans HTML5
The revised FCC set-top box plan mentioned in recent programmer ex parte filings is an apps-based model that isn't based on HTLML5 and could include commission involvement in licensing arrangements between programmers and pay-TV carriers (see 1608180062), said such documents and interviews with industry. The apps-based set-top plan backed by multichannel video programming distributors uses HTML5 and would require third-party devices to use that technology (see 1607110042). The revised plan is in its early stages, with agency officials aiming to have it approved at the Sept. 29 commissioner meeting, which would require it to go on circulation in roughly two weeks, officials from all sides said Wednesday.
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In recent weeks, CBS, Disney, Time Warner and 21st Century Fox have been in talks with FCC officials about a revised set-top plan, said multiple ex parte filings. The content companies praised the concept of maintaining the integrity of proprietary apps, often using nearly identical language. “The programmer representatives expressed general support for a rule construct in which programming at all times remains inside of an MVPD controlled app,” said a filing on a call with Disney, 21st Century Fox, and Time Warner, posted in docket 16-42 Tuesday.
Industry officials said the plan -- which is still being developed -- combines apps with a licensing regime similar to the pay-TV backed plan. They said it involves the FCC in the licensing aspect and doesn't mandate HTML5. How the revised proposal handles other aspects of the set-top debate, such as allowing third-party user interfaces, universal search and the availability of data, is still in flux, a proponent of the original FCC NPRM said.
Proponents of the FCC original plan and companies including Roku challenged the pay-TV backed apps proposal's use of HTML5, which they have said is incompatible with a great deal of existing technology. “HTML5 is a bulky architecture that would require third-party device manufacturers to include additional processing power and memory to support it, even in their lowest-priced devices,” said Roku last month. NCTA vigorously defends HTML5. “In their zeal to resist any approach that does not disaggregate the MVPD service, each of the critics has misrepresented the HTML5 apps-based approach as complex and unworkable,” said NCTA recently, saying HTML5 is compatible with a wide range of devices and suitable for accomplishing the FCC's goals. Neither the FCC nor NCTA commented for this story.
The pay-TV backed plan included a provision that would license MVPD apps (see 1608010056) to third-party set-top makers for free, and the FCC endorsed this aspect of the plan in follow-up questions officials asked NCTA (see 1607220041). The nature of licensing in the revised FCC plan isn't clear, but several of the programmer ex partes included lines asserting that licensing agreements between content companies and MVPDs should be drafted only by those parties. Industry officials have told us this is because the FCC proposal would include commission involvement in those agreements.
The new FCC plan is seen as a response to the stance taken by the Copyright Office (see 1608050053), which sided against the original NPRM as being against copyright law, industry officials told us. Though proponents of the FCC plan said CO reading of the law is too restrictive, NCTA and programmers said the office's letter renders the commission's original plan unusable. The leverage granted to programmers by the CO letter is seen as the reason why FCC officials are focusing on them with the latest set-top plan iteration, industry officials said.