FCC to Tackle Cable Leased Access as Lone Media Item at June Meeting, No Kidvid Yet
The only media item the FCC will tackle at its June 6 commissioners’ meeting concerns cable leased access rules, meaning action on relaxing kidvid rules isn’t likely until at least July, agency and industry officials told us this week. Broadcast industry officials and child advocates expect revamped kidvid regulations this summer. Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said last week he hopes “to be concluding” the kidvid proceeding “in the very near future.”
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!
The contents of the expected order on leased access rules aren’t yet known. Industry officials say the FCC may relax limitations on what information cable companies can require would-be programmers to submit, and do away with requirements that cable companies allow part-time access (see 1903150042). NCTA and America's Communications Association have also pushed for a simplified formula for calculating leased access pricing.
Cable interests want to make it tougher for prospective programmers to purchase the time, said Fletcher Heald communications lawyer Peter Tannenwald. “It’s never been successful,” he said of the leased access regime. Though low-power broadcasters used to lease cable time, Tannenwald said he’s not aware of LPTV broadcasters doing so anymore. “It’s so little used,” he said. His clients include LPTV stations.
Leased access is little used because cable companies make it difficult to do so, said Leased Access Programmers Association Vice President Duane Polich. Leased access should be kept available to part-time users, he said. “The majority of leased access users are part-time users.” If cable companies are allowed to stop providing part-time access, only users able to purchase access to an entire channel will be able to take advantage of the leased access rules, Polich said. In that scenario, the only hope for part-time users would be to sublet from larger, full channel users. he said. That business model hasn't previously existed in the industry, he said.
Handling inquiries about leased access “consumes disproportionate staff resources” and “in the vast majority of cases applicants fail to actually lease time,” said NCTA in a March filing. Part-time leased access deals for increments of time as small as half an hour impose “many of the same costs associated with launching a full-time leased access channel,” NCTA said. “A lot of other things” other than eliminating the part-time requirement could be done to resolve the issue, Polich said.
September filings on kidvid rules previously submitted by NAB, 21st Century Fox, CBS, NBCUniversal and Univision “inaccurately characterized” Nielsen data on early morning TV use, the trade group and networks said in a filing posted in docket 18-202 Tuesday. In the original filings, the broadcast interests said the data shows that “an estimated 32.45 to 44.09 million children” ages 2-15 “are watching television, whether broadcast, cable, satellite or telco” 5-7 a.m. nationwide. Now, the broadcast interests said that data should have presented the TV use as “including for broadcast, cable, satellite, telco, DVDs and digital platforms, including over-the-top (OTT) apps and video games.” That data still supports extending the time period in which kidvid required core programming can be shown to 5 a.m., said the filing. “Expanding the core programming window will provide much needed flexibility for broadcasters to better tailor their programming lineups to serve the needs of their entire communities, children included,” the filing said. “Providing broadcasters an extra two hours within which to program E/I [Educational and Informational ] content will alleviate some of the challenges.”