OVD Marketplace Succeeding in Part Because of Hands-Off Regulation, Pai Says
FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai is keeping up his public opposition to regulation of the online video distribution marketplace. "Given the remarkable success of the over-the-top (OTT) video industry -- success driven in part by regulatory restraint -- I don’t believe…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
we should change our regulatory approach," Pai said, according to his published remarks for a speech made Monday at the 2015 convention of the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia's Policy Roundtable, held in Hong Kong. Pai's address largely gave an overview of what he described as a successful online video distribution marketplace of "many different companies, of many different sizes, are offering many different choices at many different prices." That has come about because of the up-to-now "hands-off approach" to regulating the over-the-top video market, which "has yielded terrific results," Pai said. While he did not specifically cite any regulations he opposed, he quoted House Commerce Committee ranking member Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), who earlier this month spoke out against regulating a specific type of OTT service as a multichannel video programming distributor (see 1510090054). "For me as a regulator and an online video consumer, the way forward is simple," Pai said. "There is no market failure. There is no problem to be solved. Therefore, there is no need for the U.S. government to impose regulations designed for markets and technologies as they existed over 20 years ago." Pai made similar arguments in July at a Churchill Club address (see 1507170030).