Industry Groups Comment on State of Competition
The FCC should recognize the increasing competition of the video marketplace and that the market for local programming goes beyond local broadcasters, said NAB and the affiliate groups of all four major networks in comments for the FCC’s biennial state…
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of competition report (docket 22-203). “The FCC’s focus here and in pending rulemaking proceedings should be on measures increasing the broadcast industry’s competitiveness in today’s marketplace,” said NAB. “It is long past time for Commission action to classify vMVPDs as MVPDs for purposes of the retransmission consent rules,” the affiliate groups also said. “The newer distribution channels are still developing,” said MPA. “Regulation would hinder this experimentation, chill growth, increase costs, and reduce choices.” The musicFIRST Coalition and Future of Music Coalition jointly said the agency should reject NAB’s proposal to “eviscerate current numerical limits on the number of FM stations that one entity can own in a given market.” The groups also disagree with NAB over congressional legislation on performer licensing fees. “The upcoming report should not repeat the music industry’s predictable and unsuccessful talking points from a legislative debate over copyright policy,” NAB said. The agency should reject requests to treat fixed and mobile broadband services as separate complementary services and to define broadband at the 1 Gbps level, said NCTA. USTelecom said the FCC should “ease legacy regulatory hindrances” to broadband deployment. The agency should resume reporting on the practice of phone locking, said Public Knowledge, Consumer Reports and the Open Technology Institute. “Phone locking harms competition, frustrates users, and creates e-waste,” the groups said. SES Americom and O3B Limited jointly said the agency should “refrain from adopting requirements for its funding programs that specify a latency threshold of 100 ms.” Rural Media Group said the agency should launch a proceeding on “the dearth of access to rural news and agricultural programming.”