Wheeler Happy With Set-Top Negotiation; Pay-TV Lobbies FCC
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said he's “very happy” with the “broad participation” in the set-top box proceeding. “Ongoing dialogue” wasn’t occurring previously because the pay-TV industry had met such overtures with a “stiff arm,” Wheeler said Thursday after a commissioners'…
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meeting. The sides are trying to find where they “have accord,” Wheeler said. In an emailed statement Thursday, the Consumer Video Choice Coalition praised Wheeler’s comments: “The Chairman made clear that those proclaiming a specific proposal was alive or dead were misguided, noting that all proceedings before the FCC contain the same degree of healthy back-and-forth.” Smaller pay-TV carriers shouldn’t be included in FCC set-top rules, even the pay-TV backed app proposal, the American Cable Association said in a meeting with aides to Chairman Tom Wheeler and Chief Technologist Scott Jordan last week. The requirements of the app proposal would be too financially burdensome for smaller cable carriers, ACA said. In a conference call with Jordan and aides to Wheeler this week, NCTA discussed HTML5 and how the app proposal wouldn't include an additional fee for consumers. Wednesday, Verizon emailed a blog post (see 1607120079) supporting the apps proposal to aides to all five commissioners and to Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake. The filings are in docket 16-42.