Multichannel News

The Republican National Committee joined with President Donald Trump to brand the recent spate of news about the President as a media witch hunt.

Under the subject line "More Sabotage," the Make America Great Again Committee, a joint fundraising committee composed of Donald J. Trump for President, Inc., and the RNC sent an e-mail solicitation seeking money to fight that witch hunt. "Democrat hacks posing as journalists and unelected bureaucrats have incited a witch hunt to try and obstruct the American voters’ agenda," said the e-mail. "This is a sad moment for our republic." The e-mail suggested that the witch hunt was the product of the enemies of the president's attempts to shake up Washington and swamp-dwellers who don't want to be drained.

Conservative group Judicial Watch has filed suit against the Federal Communications Commission to get documents it says the commission has not produced in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. On the same day the FCC was voting to launch the rollback of Title II classification, the group said the commission had failed to turn over records related to the 2015 Internet Order that imposed Title II and the White House's influence on the decision. The suit was filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia after the group says the FCC failed to respond to two FOIA requests. Both those requests were made under new FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who has also accused the White House of pressuring the FCC to move to Title II, including referring to the Open Internet order as Obama's rules.

[Commentary] A profound shift in the balance of power between content and distribution will be the necessary consequence of eliminating Title II’s governance of the internet. For better or worse, three sectors of the media landscape will be affected.

First, this is a boon to traditional cable operators who also serve as most people’s internet service providers, via coax, fiber or wireless spectrum—the incumbent multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs). They are content gateways through which consumers’ access, cost and quality of content engagement will be determined by the content originator’s metered internet terms, payable to the ISP/MVPD. Such cost-neutralization of carriage for the traditional MVPD represents enormous advantages over virtual MVPDs, an industry effectively created by the FCC in 2014 when it reclassified the definition of MVPD to exclude any physical distribution infrastructure. While virtual MVPDs may offer content access rivaling the incumbent MVPDs, they too would be subject to the costs of a metered internet, again, payable to the ISPs. No doubt, this would be a margin-crusher that would favor the incumbent MVPDs in a content price war. The FCC has yet to comment on how exactly this promotes competition. Finally, there are the programmers whose very existence depends on bundled carriage revenues. Without the ability to offset the neutralization of carriage revenue with robust monetization of audience, the elimination of net neutrality may very well thin the herd of linear programmers. Who’s got time for bad TV anymore?

In the end, Ajit Pai’s vision for an open and free internet will likely result in outcomes marginally favorable to consumers. Content distribution is democratizing at an unbelievable rate, while audiences continue to balkanize across platforms and devices. So while consumers will soon be able to price shop providers in earnest, diversity in programming itself may be the first casualty of a new, open and free internet.

[Randy Cooke is vice president of programmatic TV at video ad inventory marketplace SpotXchange]

[Commentary] I support the recent announcement by the Federal Communications Commission to roll back the misguided and overbearing regulatory structure imposed during the Obama Administration. Access, choice and low costs are important to American consumers when it comes to high-speed internet. That is not what the Democratic-led FCC achieved with the reclassification of broadband service under a burdensome, utility-like regulatory framework.

Closing the digital divide is a top priority of mine as chairman of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee that oversees internet issues. To do so, Internet service providers need the confidence and certainty to invest in our nation’s most rural areas. A restrictive regulatory framework that chills growth and jeopardizes investment could hold back our underserved communities, stifling the potential for jobs and economic development with it.

The FCC’s action also offers Congress an opportunity to do more to ensure a free and open internet for all Americans. The time is ripe for Congress to find a way to balance proper regulatory oversight without stifling the freedom of internet service providers to grow and innovate.

[Sen Roger Wicker (R-MS) is Chairman of the Senate Communications Subcommittee]

With most results now in, the US pay TV industry lost about 762,000 video subscribers in the first quarter of 2017, a worst-ever result for the period, according to a new report from MoffettNathanson. “For the better part of fifteen years, pundits have predicted that cord-cutting was the future. Well, the future has arrived,” MoffetNathanson’s Craig Moffett declared in his Q1 2017 Cord-Cutting Monitor.

He noted that video losses from Q1 was more than five times as large as last year’s loss of 141,000. “It leaves the Pay TV subscriber universe shrinking at its worst ever annual rate of decline (-2.4%). And it was the worst ever accelerate in the rate of decline (60 bps),” Moffett explained, adding later that the incremental number of cord-cutter and cord-never homes has grown to more than 6.5 million since 2013.

Sen Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) has introduced a bill, the Gigabit Opportunity (or GO) Act, that she says would accelerate the deployment of high-speed broadband in low-income and rural communities. It would also add some Hill imprimatur to proposals already offered up by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai. The bill would give tax breaks to companies for investing in gigabit-capable expansion into those communities, direct the FCC to release a framework that encourages states, counties and cities to voluntarily adopt streamlined broadband laws and be designated as a “Gigabit Opportunity Zone," and defer capital gains for upgrades and allow companies to expense the cost of creating those zones, as well as allow states to more easily issue tax-exempt bonds.

FCC chairman Ajit Pai has launched two proceedings to make it easier to build out broadband, wireless and wired, and has proposed creating Gigabit Opportunity Zones providing such tax breaks and streamlined approvals for buildouts.

Former Commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission Robert McDowell has joined Mobile Future as chief public policy advisor. McDowell, who left the commission in 2013, continues as partner and co-leader of the global communications practice at Cooley LLP. [NOTE: Original Multichannel News article indicated that McDowell was leaving Cooley.]

McDowell, a Republican, served as a commissioner from 2006 to 2013. Originally nominated by President George W. Bush, He was re-nominated in 2009 by President Barack Obama. He joined Wiley Rein in 2014 as a partner and Cooley in 2016.

“The organization has consistently encouraged investment and innovation in the ever-evolving wireless world," said McDowell. "I look forward to working hard to spur more competition, consumer choice and economic growth as we look to the 5G future.”

INCOMPAS, which represents competitive carriers, wants the Federal Communications Commission to hold off on planned vote April 20 on FCC chair Ajit Pai's business data services deregulation until it releases the list of counties it presumes have competition and can deregulate incumbent carrier rates.

CenturyLink has snagged a potential $6 million-plus contract to provide Voice over Internet Protocol services to the General Services Administration. The contract is actually for $1.3 million for the first year, with four, one-year options In December, the telecom and broadband provider secured an $11.4 million contract (three years at $3.8 million per year) to provide VoIP service to the state offices of US senators. The contract could actually total $26 million if the government picks up the four, one-year options, for that contract.