Prohibiting joint retransmission consent negotiations among broadcasters is “an important step” in reforming retrans negotiations as a whole, pay-TV representatives told FCC commissioners Ajit Pai and Mike O'Rielly and staff from Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel’s office in meetings last week, according to an ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/1lhhEMg). Charter, Dish Network, the American Cable Association, Time Warner Cable and DirecTV all participated in the meetings. Such arrangements are “starkly anticompetitive and harmful to consumers,” the ex parte said. The commission has received “empirical evidence” showing that retrans fees can be “up to 43 percent higher for jointly negotiated ‘Big Four’ stations that elect retransmission consent than the average fee paid for separately negotiated ‘Big Four’ stations,” the ex parte said.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler continues to view the incentive auction as important to his priority of making more spectrum available for commercial use, but recent progress on development of the AWS-3 auction is also a “big deal,” said Renee Gregory, his wireless adviser, during an FCBA event. Industry observers have said the FCC slowed its work on incentive auction rules while simultaneously steaming ahead on rules for the AWS-3 auction, which must be wrapped up later this year (CD Feb 27 p1). The commission is to consider some of the AWS-3 rules, along with an order on Wi-Fi use on the 5.1 GHz band -- also known as the Unlicensed-National Information Infrastructure-1 (U-NII-1) band -- at its March 31 meeting. Wireless aides to the other FCC commissioners also noted during Thursday’s event that the commission continues to view the incentive auction as its main priority. The FCC remains “on track” to issue a report and order on the incentive auction rules this spring, Gregory said.
A proposed FCC draft order prohibiting joint negotiation in retransmission consent agreements by two top-four stations in a market is “an important first step in curbing broadcaster abuse and reforming the outdated retransmission consent regime,” American Cable Association, DirecTV and other multichannel video programming distributors said in a joint ex parte filing in docket 10-71 (http://bit.ly/1nnqM3w). The draft order began circulating Monday and is featured on the tentative agenda for the March 31 FCC meeting (CD March 11 p7). Such arrangements among separately owned broadcast stations “are starkly anticompetitive and harmful to consumers,” the MVPDs said. Broadcasters that coordinate their negotiations will pull two or more stations from an MVPD when their retrans consent demands aren’t met, “which increases the harm to consumers,” the MVPDs said. “Such harms take the form of increasing subscription rates and the loss of popular broadcast programming.” The filing recounts a meeting with Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel and her policy director, Clint Odom.
In just over four months as FCC chairman, Tom Wheeler has developed a reputation for mixing with staff, eating lunch in the commission lunchroom. Agency officials say he’s much quicker to head for another commissioner’s office for a meeting than was his immediate predecessor Julius Genachowski. He has also been willing in some cases to cut deals with the FCC’s two Republicans, Mike O'Rielly and Ajit Pai. But agency and industry officials tell us with huge issues looming, from media consolidation to spectrum aggregation, Wheeler is likely to also prove that on the issues most important to him, he’s not afraid of 3-2 votes.
The FCC H-block auction closed Thursday after 167 rounds and 24 bidding days, with total bids of $1.564 billion across the 176 Economic Area licenses. The FCC won’t provide results for a few days, but most analysts have long seen the most likely outcome as Dish Network buying almost all of the licenses (CD Feb 24 p12, Jan 28 p4). The money raised will pay part of the $7 billion startup cost of FirstNet, to be paid out of auction proceeds, industry observers said.
The FCC will work to fill some of the holes that the commission has yet to answer on the dynamics of the upcoming broadcast spectrum incentive auctions, said Chairman Tom Wheeler. “We live in revolutionary times and it’s requiring revolutionary thinking,” he said Monday in a video at an Association of Public Television Stations event in Washington. “Part of that revolution is spectrum and how the analog assumptions of yesterday don’t fit with the digital realities of today.” Never before has there been such a “risk-free and rewarding opportunity for people to participate in the digital revolution,” he said. Wheeler said the channel-sharing trial with Los Angeles TV stations KLCS and KJLA is “really important in demonstrating the realities of moving from analog concepts to digital reality.”
The FCC approved Thursday 5-0, despite concerns of its two Republican members, an NPRM that seeks comments on how the agency can ensure that wireless calls to 911 forward accurate location information to dispatchers. The vote came at the commission’s monthly meeting. The notice proposes revised location accuracy standards for all wireless calls, as well as rules for calls made indoors. The FCC last updated its wireless location accuracy rules in 2011. States led by California have raised concerns that current requirements aren’t strong enough. In November, the FCC held a workshop on the topic (CD Nov 19 p1).
An FCC move to make TV joint services agreements (JSAs) attributable at the same level they are in radio would be unpopular with broadcasters but is unlikely to cause widespread divestitures or end the practice of using pacts like JSAs to get around ownership rules, said broadcast attorneys in interviews Friday. Such a rule “would be a good first step” for the public interest groups that oppose such sharing arrangements, said Free Press Policy Counsel Lauren Wilson. “We wouldn’t see that as the end."
The FCC approved a policy statement and second further NPRM, designed to make text-to-911 more widely available, at its meeting Thursday, potentially imposing a mandate on interconnected over-the-top (OTT) text providers. The policy statement approved was a somewhat watered-down version of the statement originally circulated by Chairman Tom Wheeler (CD Jan 27 p5), FCC officials said. With the changes, all five commissioners voted to approve. Wheeler said Thursday that at the FCC’s February meeting it will take on a second 911 issue -- location accuracy for wireless calls made indoors.
On Capitol Hill Thursday, public safety officials and Democratic senators urged the FCC to kick off a proceeding setting standards for wireless 911 location standards while industry representatives struck a cautious note. Hill pressure surrounding this issue has risen over the past half year, with members of Congress in both chambers writing to the FCC last fall expressing concern following a summer CalNENA report indicating poor wireless location accuracy. The Find Me 911 Coalition has beat the drum with advertisements, a Hill briefing and other efforts to raise awareness for what it deems a problem.