Comcast's Roberts Tells Genachowski: No Quick Retrans Fixes

According to an ex parte filing with the Federal Communications Commission posted Jan. 12, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and Comcast chief Brian Roberts met Jan. 7 in Las Vegas, where Chairman Genachowski was speaking at the Consumer Electronics Show. During the meeting, the two discussed retransmission consent, TV set-tops, network neutrality and the broadband plan.

Roberts cautioned that there are no quick fixes to the retrans process, according to Comcast, but that the FCC needs to get together with industry to see whether "different approaches" are needed. On set-tops, Roberts echoed the National Cable & Telecommunications Association call for the FCC to launch a wide-ranging notice of inquiry more comprehensive than the requests for comment on the subject issued as part of the broadband plan. The FCC is widely expected to ask for more comment (specifically reply comments) on set-tops as part of that request, but the cable industry wants a larger examination of the issue that includes a hard look at the result of the FCC's ban on integrated set-tops, which the commission has conceded has not spurred a retail market in the devices. The discussions of network neutrality and the broadband plan were said to be reiterations of prior positions by Comcast.