[opendtv] Re: FCC: Chairman Wheeler comment on Dish-Sinclair dispute
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 30 Aug 2015 08:40:04 -0400
On Aug 28, 2015, at 9:44 PM, Manfredi, Albert E
<albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
So again, I only posted that article to demonstrate what the 1992 act is
meant to address. It is meant to address TV service, maintaining reliable TV
service, to people. That's the goal. The goal is not to play favorites among
MVPDs or OTA broadcasters. It is to regulate this blasted non-neutral
monopolistic delivery service.
This document is very enlightening about the 1992 Cable Act.
https://www.fcc.gov/encyclopedia/evolution-cable-television
The intent of the Act was to reign in the rapid rate increases for the
monopolistic cable pipes, and to assure carriage of local broadcast stations.
Obviously the 1992 Act, and both legislation and regulations that followed,
utterly failed to control the rates for MVPD service, even as competition from
DBS and the telcos increased.
The primary mechanism to avoid rate regulation was the expansion of the number
of live linear channels offered by a MVPD system each time local and FCC
regulators assessed requests for price increases. The cost per channel in the
extended basic bundle remained essentially flat, but as the number of channels
increased, the price increased as well.
And the source of most of the new channels needed to implement this strategy
turned out to be the broadcast conglomerates that gained leverage through the
retransmission consent provision of the 1992 Act.
Whatever you may believe the original intent of the 1992 Act to be, it failed
miserably, and created two oligopolies that work in lockstep to control TV
content and its distribution in the U.S.
With the neutral and 2-way Internet delivery pipe, the purpose of the 1992
act is irrelevant. It serves no useful purpose anymore.
Many provisions of the 1992 Act had sunset clauses. The Program Access Rules
were extended twice, but relaxed in 2012, as negotiated carriage for all types
of facilities based MVPDs is working in general. But the FCC issued another
NPRM last December to determine if the Program Access Rules are needed to
enable competition in the MVPD market by non facility based companies using the
Internet for delivery of their services.
Your arguments that the marketplace is working with this neutral pipe are not
convincing. But that is irrelevant. What is relevant is whether the FCC will
use its authority to gain regulatory control over the application that is
starting to dominate the use of Internet bandwidth - the delivery of TV content.
This opportunity is "irresistible" for bureaucrats...
**The govt does not mandate that every retail outlet must have access to the
product of every wholesaler
Correct. Only those wholesale services that Congress determines need
regulation...
Like MVPD services.
I wrote:
Do you mean the ability of the middlemen to negotiate carriage
agreements?
I mean, the need to negotiate anything, which would put the consumer in a
bind. If CBS wants to block its content from the Gainesville market, on the
Internet, it is only CBS would make that decision. There's no other middleman
to negotiate with, who might force the issue.
What if CBS wants to sell its content to middlemen, as it has done for decades?
Are you suggesting that all middlemen, including Netflix and Amazon Prime be
eliminated?
If the latter, then Sinclair, et al will need to convince the
content owners (and the sports leagues) to give them the
rights to make the programming available FOTI.
Or the content owners or sports leagues can bypass Sinclair, or anyone else,
and put their content on the Internet directly.
They certainly have that option.
Or they can use Sinclair as their CDN.
Sinclair is a OTA station group, not a CDN.
If Sinclair doesn't like some aspect of their deal, the content owner jumps
over to Akamai.
So you are suggesting that content owners should eliminate middlemen that
bundle live and/or VOD content, and use a new kind of middleman to distribute
their bits.
When the middleman doesn't own the monopolistic delivery pipe, he doesn't
have the leverage that the 1992 act was meant to curb. The pipe itself is
mandated to be neutral.
The 1992 act was not trying to curb the leverage of the monopolistic cable
pipe, it was trying to curb the leverage that this pipe had due to the vertical
integration of exclusive programming. And it gave broadcasters the ability to
participate in the lucrative second revenue streams enjoyed by the vertically
integrated cable networks.
The FCC is currently trying to determine if this same leverage is now being
used to disadvantage would be MVPD competitors using the Internet to deliver
their services.
Don't need to speak with them personally, because they have spoken to the
press, personally. And yes, they do agree with me, but not with Craig.
That is obviously not true.
That's why each of them has been branching out, while Craig steadfastly
continues to do what's in the best interest of legacy walled gardens.
They are protecting their cash cows, while experimenting and learning about
potential new business models.
Regards
Craig
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