Matt Daneman

Big pay-TV companies buy in bulk, which can mean better pricing on everything from set-top boxes to channels of content. But the current slew of consolidations is less about cheaper programming costs than about getting the scope and resources needed to compete with the booming over-the-top (OTT) universe and about responding to the small but growing wave phenomenon of cord cutting, industry experts said. “In the world of delivering video, Roku is a whole hell of a lot bigger than most midsize cable operators,” cable analyst Steve Effros said. “The world is changing.”

FCC efforts to ensure satellite companies and broadcast stations negotiate in good faith aren't a government requirement that such stations have no leverage in negotiating carriage terms and conditions with satellite carriers, the NAB said of proposed rules for "orphan counties" that sit in one state but are considered part of TV designated market areas primarily based in a different state. The way satellite has operated for years “has proven noncontroversial,” but broadcasters are pushing “a far more intrusive regime,” DirecTV said in reply comments on the FCC review of Section 102 of the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act Reauthorization (STELAR) Act of 2014. The FCC is required to approve new DBS market modification rules by September. While changing the market modification rule has broad support, how to go about doing that remains a sticking point (see 1505140054).

The FCC has repeatedly said the way it levies fees on the companies it regulates needs to change, but the new fee structures proposed for FY 2015 had plenty of critics. In the proposed fee structure in the FY 2015 rulemaking notice on docket 15-121 released May 21 (see 1505220050), the FCC said it expects to raise nearly $340 million in regulatory fees for the fiscal year. The agency proposed charging direct broadcast satellite (DBS) operators 12 cents a year per subscriber, while simultaneously cutting what cable and IPTV operators pay from $1.01 per subscriber to 95 cents. That was opposed by DBS operators, who argued in filings that the cost of regulating them is far less than the cost of regulating cable operators, and the FCC lacks the regulatory power to suddenly institute new regulatory fees.

Broadband Internet issues -- not cable -- will be the focus of federal regulators reviewing the proposed Charter Communications buy of Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable, said former FCC Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth and Public Knowledge President Gene Kimmelman on the latest segment of C-SPAN's The Communicators. "It's going to get very serious review," Kimmelman said. "What happens to my cable bill? What happens to my broadband prices? Do I get better speeds? Will the Netflix, the Amazon [streaming video] products ... be more available or will this combined entity try to cut off my options? That'll be the big [regulatory] question. The cable company has an incentive to favor its own product." Furchtgott-Roth said much of the FCC and Justice Department analyses likely will involve local individual markets. "These are geographically distinct companies," Furchtgott-Roth said. "I'm not convinced they have greater market power collectively than they do individually. At least initially from the outside, it's very difficult to see that there will be substantial antitrust problems." The episode was to have been televised Saturday on C-SPAN and is scheduled for 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. Monday on C-SPAN-2.

The ITU's slow pace of regulatory change was a frustration to panelists at an FCBA event Thursday marking the first launch 50 years ago of a commercial communications satellite in geosynchronous orbit, Intelsat 1. The ITU is responsible for overseeing the assigning of satellite orbits and coordinating global use of radio spectrum. “You may not always agree with" the ITU, said Brian Fontes, National Emergency Number Association CEO. “You may certainly not agree with its time schedule." The body's existence was "a step in the right direction" from not having anything to coordinate frequency use globally, he said. While the speed of technology change and commercial pressures are faster than the ITU moves, “It’s the only system we have,” said David Leive, ex-Intelsat general counsel. The ITU is slow moving, said Internet lawyer Henry Goldberg of Goldberg Godles. He lauded PanAmSat co-founder Rene Anselmo, who helped break the monopoly held by Intelsat: PanAmSat "was a huge success.” The ITU had no immediate comment. “The international consensus style and the U.S. style of encouraging technology don’t really mesh very well” in the ITU, Goldberg said, saying “they work out eventually.”

The FCC Enforcement Bureau sees “genuine issues of material fact&rdquo in Game ShowNetwork’s carriage complaint against Cablevision that should be aired before a judge. In an 11-page submission posted Wednesday in docket 12-122 to FCC Chief Administrative Law Judge Richard Sippel, the bureau said the summary judgment Cablevision seeks is “inappropriate” because there are factual issues to be weighed. Sippel required the response after the bureau said it wouldn't make a filing on whether he should uphold Cablevision's request, angering Sippel (see 1505200069).