It’s safe to say that if the FCC moves forward with its set-top box proposal, which seeks to open up the set-top market to third-party vendors, cable will sue. In separate media briefings Thursday, both NCTA and ACA executives made it clear that they won’t hesitate to take the commission to court.
Programmers Wary Of FCC’s Set-Top Plan
If consumers are able to replace the set-tops they now lease from cable or satellite providers with a box or app from a third party as the FCC is proposing, Google and others could sell boxes or apps that would offer access to both traditional cable fare and OTT streaming services. Programmers are joining the opposition, concerned that they could lose control over their content and the advertising that supports it and be further exposed to OTT competition.
The cable group tells the FCC that blocking viewers’ access to online programming, “when used by broadcasters as a tactic in retransmission consent negotiations, should be deemed to violate the duty to negotiate in good faith.”
The FCC’s net neutrality rules came under a new legal assault Tuesday, as AT&T and the major wireless and cable industry groups sued to overturn the order. AT&T and its trade group CTIA — The Wireless Association, which also represents Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile, filed lawsuits in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, as did the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, whose members include Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Cablevision. The American Cable Association, which represents smaller cable operators, went to the same court.
The trade group says its new Internet and Television Expo “reflects the evolution and transformation of the NCTA’s The Cable Show and will focus on the digital media and entertainment economy, featuring multichannel video and broadband Internet providers, television creators and producers, online video distributors, digital technologists and startups, engineers and more.”
Exclusives
“We welcome an examination of a retransmission consent regime that is increasingly fractured and in need of some repair,” said Michael Powell, NCTA’s president-CEO, but didn’t offer any specifics about the new reforms the cable trade group intends to promote.
Cable Convenes Under Cloud Of Uncertainty
Michael Powell leads the NCTA as it holds its annual convention, but he will be hard pressed to present a unified front.
Rising Costs Could Spur Cable Consolidation
Wall Street analysts says higher carriage and retrans fees, plus declining video customers, could lead to MSO mergers.
Challenges Top Of Mind As Cable Gathers
The cable industry’s annual gathering is usually a celebration of new technologies, popular programming and sunny projections for growth. But when top pay-TV executives gather in Washington for the National Cable & Telecommunications Association convention this week the conversation may be a bit more somber as there are some big clouds on the horizon that will put a damper on what typically has been a three-day party.
A multimedia public service effort is designed to raise parental awareness of TV and film ratings, parental controls, media literacy and mental health issues.
Mooney served from 1984 to 1993 as president & CEO of NCTA. He was principal and managing partner of JLM Partners Inc., a Seattle-based boutique corporate communications firm serving clients in the cable, wireless, consumer electronics, and digital media sectors for more than 15 years.
The cable industry is trying to exclude “promotional material” from a new law that says TV commercials can be no louder than the programs they accompany.
A coalition of more than 30,000 African-American churches is planning protests next week to take place in front of the headquarters of both the FCC and NCTA. The protests were inspired by the FCC’s failure to renew rules that force cable operators to carry certain analog channels even if their networks have gone digital. This rule has mainly had the effect of protecting religious programming, a staple of the black church in some communities.
The National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) today announced that K. Dane Snowden, formerly chief of the FCC Consumer and Government Affairs Bureau and currently VP for external and state […]
The FCC has been working on plans to create AllVid, a new CableCARD replacement standard for the delivery of IP video services and applications to Internet-connected television sets. The National Cable and Telecommunications Association, however, wants the FCC to back off.
The cable group’s supplementary filing reguarding the FCC’s video competition report says that 1992 Cable Act regulations are no longer necessary.
If Wednesday night’s Washington reception for former FCC Chairman and now National Cable & Telecommunications Association President Michael Powell was any indication, he will have a respectful and attentive commission audience for his advocacy for the cable industry.
The former FCC chairman succeeds Kyle McSlarrow as head of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association beginning April 25.
One source said former FCC Chairman Michael Powell’s succession of Kyle McSlarrow as president of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association is “likely,” while another said it could be down to deal points. Powell is now chairman of the MKPowell Group and a senior adviser to Providence Equity Partners.
National Cable & Telecommunications Association President Kyle McSlarrow will join Comcast as president, Comcast/NBCU, Washington, beginning next month. McSlarrow announced last fall that he would be leaving the association to seek a job in the industry he had spent the last half a decade promoting in Washington.
The president of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association has decided to leave the trade group next spring after six years. As NCTA searches for successor, he is searching for a job within the industry.
