John Eggerton

The American Cable Association wants the Federal Communications Commission to act on retransmission consent reforms before most of its smaller cable op members have to start negotiating new three-year retrans deals starting in October of this year.

Key to those reforms, says ACA, is allowing cable operators to import out-of-market signals during retrans blackouts.

"It is axiomatic that MVPD subscribers should no longer be held hostage and subjected to broadcaster blackouts during retransmission consent negotiating impasses," ACA told the commission.

That came in comments to the FCC on further reforms of its retransmission consent rules. The FCC has already voted to prevent coordinated retransmission consent negotiations between top-four non-commonly owned TV stations in a market. ACA wants the FCC to prevent all third-party participation in retrans negotiations, including preventing a network from "interfering" with the ability of a station to grant out-of-market retransmission consent.

AT&T Chairman Randall Stephenson and DirecTV Chairman Michael White stopped by the Federal Communications Commission on June 25 to pitch the merger of the two companies.

According to FCC documents, they met with FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel and her legal advisor to stress the public interest benefits of the deal and the pledges they made, which include extending broadband to 15 million more customers through fixed wireless and fiber buildouts; offering video/broadband bundles in a wider area, offering standalone broadband and video; and committing to abide by the FCC's vacated network neutrality rules for three years (it would automatically be subject to new rules if the FCC passes them).

AT&T signaled RFD-TV could get U-Verse carriage if its proposed combination with satellite operator DirecTV deal is approved by regulators.

The rural channel has gotten some high-profile attention in Hill hearings on the AT&T/DirecTV and Comcast/Time Warner Cable deals from legislators concerned about large media companies' carriage of rural-themed programming (Comcast has dropped the channel on some of its mostly urban and suburban systems).

Josh Wheeler, director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression in Charlottesville (VA), has been named to the First Amendment advisory council of the Media Institute. The Media Institute is a First Amendment think tank supported by media companies and a driving force behind Free Speech Week.

Some legislators took the opportunity of DirecTV Chairman Michael White's appearance at a House antitrust subcommittee hearing to ask about their constituents’ access to local signals.

Full Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) spent some time probing White on why DirecTV does not provide the local ABC affiliate in Harrisonburg (VA) to his constituents despite being allowed to do so legally. Instead they have to get the ABC affiliate from Washington (DC), he pointed out, which is hours away.

He asked White whether he would commit to resolving the issue. White conceded DirecTV had "some gaps" in its local coverage, but was working on them, including by launching two new satellites within the next year, and plans for closing one of those Virginia gaps -- in Charlottesville – later in 2014. He said he would be happy to work with the chairman on the issue of orphan counties so long as DirecTV did not have to double pay retransmission and its spot beams could reach the relevant rural areas.

Mike Gravino, director of the LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition put out the call for PBS affiliates worried about having a home following the broadcast incentive auctions.

Noncoms, including PBS, have expressed their "profound disappointment" that the Federal Communications Commission auction framework does not ensure that all communities have free access to a public TV station following the auction and repacking of stations into smaller spectrum space.

"There are a growing number of PBS affiliates which want to enter the auction, and if they do, the PBS network is concerned that there will be gaps in the national coverage for PBS," said Gravino. "Many of these stations are owned by educational, community-owned and faith-institutions, and if they want to take a payday for their organizations in the auction, the door is now wide-open for PBS affiliates to contract with LPTV stations for carriage. But it must be done prior to the auction happening."

Sen Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Mike Lee (R-UT) the chair and ranking members of the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee, respectively, have written the Federal Communications Commission and Justice Department to highlight concerns raised in the parent Senate Judiciary Committee's marathon April 9 hearing on the proposed Comcast/Time Warner Cable merger.

Among the issues they wanted the agencies to consider in their vetting of the deal was the combined company's share of the broadband video market.

"A key element of any analysis of this merger will be the impact it will have on innovation in the markets for Internet and video and, in particular, any impact it may have on the development of online video distribution," they wrote in the letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and William Baer, assistant attorney general for antitrust.

Sens Klobuchar and Lee also relayed concerns from the hearing about the deal's reduction of the number of potential outlets for traditional video programming, and its potential to raise prices by raising its rivals' costs. "Because this transaction will materially increase the buying power of the largest buyer in the market for programming, it is important for your agencies to carefully assess the impact of this transaction on the ability of viable content providers of all types to obtain distribution of their content," they wrote.

Sens Klobuchar and Lee's last point was about the potential to raise prices for must-have content, including regional sports networks.

The National Conference of Mayors has approved a resolution supporting Federal Communications Commission’s network neutrality rules and calling for "comprehensive nondiscrimination" -- no paid priority -- to be a "key principle" in any FCC rulemaking creating new rules.

That came in a resolution--among 261 pages worth of them--adopted at their annual meeting in Dallas, which ended on June 23. They mayors also called on the White House and Congress to back the FCC, and the latter, if necessary, to "enshrine access to a free and open Internet and give the FCC a clear mandate."

As for paid prioritization, which has become a hot-button issue for the FCC's proposed new rules and their "commercially reasonable" standard for allowing some types of discrimination, the mayors were clearly supportive. The mayors also added their support to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's plan to preempt state laws that impede municipal broadband, saying they were a "significant limitation" to competitive broadband.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler's E-rate reform proposal took heat from a bunch of education associations, but not all were giving the plan a low grade, particularly those who applauded Wheeler for moving on reforms they see as needed now.

The State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA) "applauded" the momentum toward reform represented by the proposal. It pointed out that many of the proposals were ones it had suggested, including prioritizing broadband, increasing transparency, and increasing infrastructure investments.

“By focusing E-rate on high-speed broadband and expanding funding for Wi-Fi, Chairman Wheeler’s proposal for the modernization of E-rate lays the foundation for the permanent expansion of E-rate that the nation’s schools and libraries so desperately need," said Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education. "I appreciate Chairman Wheeler’s sense of urgency on this matter. I urge the FCC to modernize E-rate, and to quickly take the next step of expanding the program to bring today’s schools and libraries into the digital age."

Writers Guild of America, West, President Christopher Keyser, will tell the Senate antitrust subcommittee on June 24 that the proposed AT&T/DirecTV merger "threatens the progress of our most vital communication platforms and will stifle the creativity, independence and innovation enabled by online video."

The merger will inevitably lead to collusion on price, choice and service, he said, cannot be mitigated by conditions, is not in the public interest, and should be blocked. Keyser said that was coming from a group representing more than 8,000 TV and movie writers.

"The writers whom I represent have experienced two decades of consolidation, which has reduced a once vibrant market of independent producers to one in which seven companies control almost all of television," he said in written testimony for a Senate antitrust subcommittee hearing on the deal.