The FCC should reconsider proposed changes in an April NPRM on rules for Section 214 international authorizations (see 2304200039), CTIA and others said in reply comments, posted Tuesday in docket 23-119. The order authorized a one-time collection of foreign-ownership information from authorization holders and sought comment on rules requiring carriers to renew the authorizations every 10 years, “or in the alternative,” periodic updates. The FCC got pushback in the initial comment round but general support from DOJ, DOD and Department of Homeland Security, sometimes called Team Telecom (see 2309010058).
The Biden administration’s effort to protect national security by limiting tech investment in China could have the opposite effect by putting American companies at a disadvantage, tech associations told the Treasury Department in comments due Thursday (see 2308100003).
NAB CEO Curtis LeGeyt repeated his call for the FCC to refresh the record on reclassifying streamers as MVPDs in an NAB-members-only virtual town hall Thursday, said an NAB release on the event: “What we’re asking the FCC to do is to reopen a proceeding that has been dormant for the last nine years that takes a look at whether those rules of the road that apply to the cable and satellite services ought to be extended to virtual MVPDs.” “It turns out we didn’t need new or old regulations to allow the streaming market to develop and thrive,” said a spokesperson for the Streaming Innovation Alliance in an email Wednesday. The SIA is an advocacy group formed by streamers such as Disney and Netflix to oppose applying retransmission consent rules to VMPVDs. The rise of streaming companies “is a great news story about innovation and consumer technology,” the spokesperson said. In the townhall, LeGeyt also urged local broadcasters to talk to their lawmakers in support of items such as requiring AM in cars and preventing radio performance royalties. “Certainly we can be making the policy arguments as a trade association here in Washington but our members need to tell the story of how this is impacting their service,” LeGeyt said.
The recent formation of streamer advocacy group Streamer Innovation Alliance (see 2309260050) “appears to be another act from big tech to claim modernized regulations will harm consumers -- just like they argued before when they led the charge to destroy local newspapers by monopolizing ad dollars,” said a Coalition for Local News spokesperson in a statement. The Coalition for Local News was formed by broadcasters that own top-four network affiliate stations to push for streaming services to be reclassified as MVPDs. “Streamers have rapidly become a dominant player in the video marketplace, and the resources they have devoted to launch [SIA] shows that,” the coalition said. The current media marketplace is “tilted in favor of big tech and the national networks,” and the rules governing streamers should be revisited “so that local news can thrive in the streaming era,” said the coalition. SIA didn’t comment.
Large streaming services including Netflix, Paramount+, Peacock and Disney formed an advocacy group, with former FCC acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn and former House Commerce Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., as senior advisers, said a release Tuesday from the new Streaming Innovation Alliance. SIA also includes Max, TelevisaUnivision, VaultAccess and the For Us By Us Network. The Motion Picture Association “played a leading role” in organizing the group, the release said. The creation of the SIA appears to be a response to a push from broadcasters to reclassify streaming services as MVPDs that would fall under the FCC’s retransmission consent regime; network affiliate groups spun up their own advocacy entity, the Coalition for Local News, earlier this summer. Networks and YouTube also started an advocacy group focused on the matter (see 2308310064). “The rise of innovative, new video streaming services is an American success story we should celebrate and encourage, not smother with obsolete and ill-fitting rules and regulations designed for completely different technology, products, and business models,” said Upton in the release. “Streaming services have opened up a new era of progress for program diversity that is bringing relevant stories and options to historically underserved communities at a record pace while opening doors for production jobs to people of color that have been shut for decades,” said Clyburn in the release. “Any policy that drags down streaming would turn back the clock on this vital progress as well.” As a first step, broadcasters pushed the FCC to refresh the record in docket 14-261, the proceeding in which reclassification was considered in 2014. Clyburn was an FCC commissioner then and voted in favor of an NPRM seeking comment on reclassifying over-the-top services as MVPDs, which she called “prescient.” “Our goals should be to define ‘multichannel video programming distributor’ as broadly as possible to accommodate a new set of choices and offerings for consumers,” Clyburn wrote then. “We also want to ensure that nascent, internet-based services are not given competitive advantages over established MVPDs, who have well-defined obligations under the law.” SIA released a poll Tuesday, conducted by FGS Global, finding most voters surveyed viewed streaming services favorably and expressed concern that new regulations “could require streaming services to collect more data or deter them from offering sensitive programming,” the release said. NAB and the Coalition for Local News didn’t comment.
It’s good for the federal government to fund chips in states that have already spent their own money, rather than trying to spread money across every area that hasn’t invested in semiconductors, said panelists on an Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) webinar Wednesday. State officials discussed their roles in helping the Chips Act succeed. “Piggybacking on the work we’re doing is what is going to see us succeed,” said Kevin Younis, New York Empire State Development chief operating officer. “There has to be strategic cluster-based investments [or] we’re not going to succeed. With the peanut butter spread over the whole sandwich, you won’t taste it.” States can help the Chips Act succeed by addressing the workforce gap and cutting red tape, said David Isaacs, Semiconductor Industry Association vice president-government affairs. "There's a huge gap throughout the economy in skilled workers," with the semiconductor industry “just a small slice of the overall pie,” said Isaacs. An SIA report said about 58% of needed jobs may not be filled, including engineers, computer scientists and technicians, he said: “We need to see federal-state partnerships with industry and education to train these workers.” Also, states can play an important role speeding projects by streamlining permitting and other regulatory approval processes, he said. Arizona Commerce Authority CEO Sandra Watson said her state is “constantly having conversations about the regulatory environment and how to make that easier on industry.”
As the Biden administration this week marked the one-year anniversary of the enactment of the Chips Act, which provides incentives and funding opportunities for the chips sector, the semiconductor industry urged the White House and lawmakers to keep foreign markets open and “advance policies that enhance this historic accomplishment.”
The Semiconductor Industry Association this week released a report on the state of the American chip industry, highlighting issues surrounding U.S. Chips Act implementation, the manufacturing industrial base, global chip demand, American technological competitiveness, geopolitical tensions impacting the industry and more.
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The Biden administration should wait to place new export controls on the semiconductor industry until it adequately assesses the impact of its existing restrictions, the Semiconductor Industry Association said this week. The U.S. chip industry should be able to continue accessing the China market, SIA said, warning that “repeated steps” to “impose overly broad, ambiguous, and at times unilateral restrictions risk diminishing the U.S. semiconductor industry’s competitiveness, disrupting supply chains, causing significant market uncertainty, and prompting continued escalatory retaliation by China.”