2016: Democrats Win White House, FCC

[Commentary] The momentum behind the huge topic that has broiled through several Republican and Democratic administrations and decades, and has rarely gone anywhere forward, i.e., the Immigration issue, moved substantially forward, again. Yet, again, it did so, solely at the hand of President Barack Obama. In that act, the more important political accomplishment by the chief executive was to capture another four years at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for a Democratic administration. That result also promised to extend the 3-2 Democratic commissioners’ current majority at the Federal Communications Commission from eight to 12 years, at minimum (along with the power base at just about every other administrative office at the federal level). Thus, judging the odds, if one were making important political and business decisions about the leanings of the FCC as we round the next decade, the folks whose mascot is the donkey might well get the nod.

[Schaeffler is chairman and CSO of the streaming/broadband, broadcast, and pay TV/video consultancy, The Carmel Group]