His office will “sit down with all the players” this week to discuss the pay-TV backed compromise set-top proposal (see 1606160059), Chairman Tom Wheeler said Friday at a news conference after commissioners' meeting. The commission needs to understand the pay-TV proposal before it can decide how to react, Wheeler said. In a later news conference by the Republican FCC commissioners, Mike O’Rielly said “there was a lot to like” about the pay-TV proposal, and he hoped this week’s meetings wouldn’t be a discussion of “how to mangle it.”
Monty Tayloe
Monty Tayloe, Associate Editor, covers broadcasting and the Federal Communications Commission for Communications Daily. He joined Warren Communications News in 2013, after spending 10 years covering crime and local politics for Virginia regional newspapers and a turn in television as a communications assistant for the PBS NewsHour. He’s a Virginia native who graduated Fork Union Military Academy and the College of William and Mary. You can follow Tayloe on Twitter: @MontyTayloe .
Pay-TV carriers didn't offer their compromise set-top proposal during the Downloadable Security Technology Advisory Committee (DSTAC) process because the HTML5 standard it's based on wasn't complete, said AT&T Senior Vice President-Federal Regulatory Robert Quinn at a Phoenix Center event. “You can't really commit to build something that doesn't exist yet.” Recent acknowledgments of the pay-TV backed proposal by Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel and Google (see 1606210062) show the FCC-backed set-top plan “is on life support,” Quinn said Wednesday evening.
A draft order that would allow broadcasters to use three new emergency alert system codes to communicate specific storm threats is expected to be unanimously approved by the FCC Friday, said industry and agency officials in interviews this week. The EAS item is seen as uncontroversial, and though some broadcasters may not possess equipment capable of transmitting the new codes, their use is expected to be voluntary, industry officials told us. Historically, the use of new EAS codes has been up to broadcasters, said Monroe Electronics Senior Director-Strategy and Government Affairs Ed Czarnecki.
As a pay-TV backed alternative to the FCC set-top proposal gains steam (see 1606200048), the commission's plan may face an additional hurdle from Capitol Hill in the form of an appropriations rider that could delay new rules until after further study. The study would focus on the effects of set-top rule changes on diversity in programming. Supporters of the FCC set top proposal have characterized it as a delaying tactic by the pay-TV industry.
The FCC is viewed as farther away from approving its proposed changes to the set-top box market in the wake of comments from Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel that are seen to indicate interest in a pay-TV backed compromise offer, industry officials told us Monday. The FCC needs to find “another way forward” Rosenworcel told Reuters, in comments confirmed by her office. Rosenworcel was widely believed to be referring to the NCTA and AT&T backed compromise proposed at the FCC last week (see 1606160059). Pay-TV industry officials told us they see her comment as an indication that she won’t vote for the original proposal laid out in the NPRM.
The reverse portion of the incentive auction is seen as going well for participating broadcasters, according to what information can be gleaned from them, attorneys and analysts laboring under the strictures of FCC anti-collusion rules. The Incentive Auction Task Force (IATF) won't comment on the status of the auction and no broadcaster is likely to know how things are going beyond its own auction assets. Anecdotal information we gathered from broadcast industry officials shows a common trend of stations freezing at higher prices than expected, and a tone of general satisfaction about how the auction is proceeding.
Some pay-TV carriers and programmers offered what they say is a “third-way” compromise on rules designed to create a competitive retail set-top box market. The new proposal is an alternative to both the FCC set-top proposal and multichannel video programming distributors' preferred app system. Though the FCC released a complimentary statement, supporters of the FCC plan say the compromise plan doesn't go far enough.
The FCC has “no support, anywhere” for requiring board members of noncommercial education stations to submit Social Security numbers to be assigned restricted-use FCC registration numbers, said numerous NCE stations in replies supporting their petitions for reconsideration (see 1605040056) of the new RUFRN rules. No comments supporting the rules have been filed, the stations said. The record in docket 10-234 contains “considerable evidence” that the RUFRN rules will harm NCE stations by discouraging donors and participation on their boards, said PBS, CPB, NPR and America’s Public Television Stations in joint reply comments.
The FCC upcoming draft broadcast ownership quadrennial review order is expected to resurrect the commission’s vacated joint sales agreement rules and stick close to a 2014 Further NPRM on media ownership, said attorneys on both the broadcaster and public interest sides of the issues. They said in interviews this and last week that there may be some fluidity on the newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership rule that was specifically targeted in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals majority opinion that spurred the FCC to action. The item, planned to go on circulation by June 30 (see 1605250073), is expected to contain few surprises, several attorneys told us. The FCC declined to comment Tuesday.
Media General and Nexstar announced agreements to divest 12 stations, to secure FCC Media Bureau approval for their combination. Bigger questions loom about the deal's joint sales agreements, according to FCC filings and attorneys familiar with the deal. The FCC stance on JSA's is up in the air because of 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Prometheus III decision (see 1605250016) remanding the rules barring JSAs in some circumstances and the upcoming quadrennial review rulemaking which the 3rd Circuit wants the agency to finish soon. Even before the ruling, Nexstar and Media General argued in FCC filings that the JSAs involved in that acquisition should be allowed to continue, despite recent bureau policy. “To the extent that the Commission may have unofficially taken a contrary position, that position is inconsistent with the statutory language, conflicts with the Commission’s own precedent and practices, and even if correct, would still mandate grandfathering the Legacy JSAs here,” said Nexstar and Media General in opposition comments filed in response to petitions to deny the first company's buy of the second.