Monty Tayloe

NAB and public interest groups disagree on whether the FCC should eliminate the requirement that broadcasters keep a hard-copy file of correspondence from the public available for viewing at TV stations, according to replies in docket 16-161 in time for Monday's deadline. “Members of the public rarely -- if ever -- access stations’ paper correspondence, instead relying on digital forms of communication to comment about a station’s performance,” said NAB. But “moving to an online-only format would frustrate poor people and people of color -- who still tend to rely on over-the-air television -- from effectively communicating with their local broadcasters,” said the National Hispanic Media Coalition with the AFL-CIO, Public Knowledge, Free Press, Common Cause, Communication Workers of America and Center for Media Justice. Eliminating the correspondence file doesn't have to stop the public from communicating with broadcasters, NAB said. “If members of the public still want to communicate with broadcasters through written mail or e-mail,” they can still do so, NAB said. Broadcaster arguments that the files are an unnecessary burden fly in the face of their claim that no one ever looks in the correspondence file, the public interest groups said. “One cannot claim credibly that staff are burdened by constant visits from the public and then also argue that such visits never actually happen because communications occur largely through social media.” The public groups downplayed broadcasters' concerns that allowing the public into stations to view such files is a security threat. The groups “support safe workspaces for broadcasters, but there are simply no documented incidents of violence resulting from an individual inspecting the public file," they said. The public interest groups haven't shown why such files are needed, NAB said. “If NHMC believes it imperative that broadcasters maintain their correspondence files, then it should produce at least some shred of evidence demonstrating the continuing value of those paper files.” The American Cable Association was the sole reply commenter to file on a commission proposal to eliminate a similar requirement for cable headend information. ACA wants the FCC to allow companies to continue to hold that information in their office and to be able to make it available to authorized representatives if they wish. “There is no policy justification for imposing new burdens on cable operators” ACA said.

Three months before a presidential election that could signal the end of his time in the driver’s seat, has Chairman Tom Wheeler’s FCC done what he said it would when he took office? Based on interviews with FCC officials, pay-TV executives and communications attorneys of many stripes, the answer is, “Mostly.”

Associations and companies of every stripe support FCC efforts to streamline rules for so-called Team Telecom reviews of transactions involving foreign ownership, according to comments posted Friday in docket 16-155. “Protection of U.S. national security, law enforcement, and public safety interests need not entail the uncertainty, costs, and inequitable treatment embodied by the current Team Telecom review process,” said Level 3. Commenters want the FCC to hold executive branch review to certain timelines and reduce the scope of deals that trigger Team Telecom review, they said.

Recent meetings between programmers and eighth-floor officials suggest the FCC is proposing a new, apps-based set-top plan, intended to be more acceptable to content companies than previous approaches, according to several recent ex parte filings and pay-TV industry officials. In meetings documented in docket 16-42 with 21st Century Fox and Disney and a similar meeting with CBS, FCC officials including Chief Technology Officer Scott Jordan and aides to Chairman Tom Wheeler told content companies they were considering a “revised” set-top plan that would allow all programmer content to remain in pay-TV apps and therefore within the bounds of existing contracts between carriers and programmers, the ex parte filings said. Neither content company officials nor the FCC would comment Thursday.

Other satellite-industry companies see problems with OneWeb's proposed satellite constellation, according to comments filed in the proceeding by Monday's deadline. Companies such as SpaceX, ViaSat and SES expressed concern about spectrum efficiency, how OneWeb's proposal would interact with other satellites, what the effect of planned new rules for non-geosynchronous orbit constellations would be, and about waivers OneWeb has requested. “OneWeb’s system would not only make inefficient use of the spectrum it seeks to use, but may also prevent other NGSO/FSS [fixed satellite service] systems from efficiently sharing the available spectrum,” SpaceX said.

Broadcasters in the incentive auction have no ability to influence prices they get for their spectrum in the reverse auction, an Incentive Auction Task Force spokesman said in an interview Friday. Since the reverse auction closed at a stratospheric $86 billion, some auction watchers have been suggesting that price was partially caused by broadcasters holding out for big numbers. That's not the case, according to the FCC, explanatory blogs about auction mechanics and a tweet from broadcast-side auction consultant Preston Padden using the term “uninformed blather” to describe quotes in a recent article (see 1607200072).

The FCC voted 3-2 along party lines to approve a media ownership order Wednesday that, as expected (see 1608080051), largely resembles its 2014 NPRM, industry and agency officials told us. An spokesman confirmed the item had been voted, but details of the voting breakdown and the text of the order weren't released. FCC and industry officials told us the item was approved by all three Democratic commissioners and opposed by both Republicans, and keeps most ownership rules in place and resurrects joint sales agreement (JSA) ownership attribution rules that were vacated by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

A now abandoned eighth-floor proposal to relax newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership rules limiting common holdings of daily newspapers and radio or TV stations in the same market was connected with discussions about whether such NBCO relief would come with long-sought diversity studies, informed sources including industry officials said. The idea to eliminate the NBCO isn't being pursued because Commissioner Mignon Clyburn wanted the FCC to conduct such studies if it pursued cross-ownership deregulation, some said. Chairman Tom Wheeler had been seeking ways to get a unanimous vote on the draft media ownership order, officials told us. Now, some say, a 3-2 vote to approve the order is the most likely outcome.

Support on the eighth floor for a compromise media ownership order that would have eliminated newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership (NBCO) rules has collapsed, and a draft order that keeps the provision in place is seen as nearly certain to be approved 3-2, FCC officials told us Monday. The alternative draft order to eliminate NBCO was seen as having support from Chairman Tom Wheeler and Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel (see 1607290063). Their support was conditioned on the item also being backed by Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, current and former FCC officials told us.

Pay-TV officials don't expect the FCC eventual final set-top box order to be much influenced by the letter from the Copyright Office released last week (see 1608040062). They expect the FCC to offer some compromise, drawing from multiple proposals, but it likely will include aspects of the content “unbundling” that were criticized in the CO letter, the pay-TV officials said. Proponents of the FCC original plan also expect a compromise solution, they told us Friday. Members of the Consumer Video Choice Coalition said the eventual order must allow for third-party boxes to have their own channel guides for navigating multichannel video programming distributors content, which is one of the concepts the CO said violates copyright. In a news conference Thursday, FCC Chairman Wheeler repeatedly said the eventual FCC plan would comply with copyright law.