http://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/washington/fcc-order-would-ax-syndex-network-non-duplication-rules/143320
FCC Order Would Ax Syndex, Network Non-Duplication Rules
In a big win for cable operators, FCC chairman Tom Wheeler is circulating an
order eliminating the network non-duplication and syndicated exclusivity rules,
which means those protections from importation of duplicative network and
syndicated programming into local TV markets by pay TV providers would have to
be struck contractually rather than prohibited by the FCC.
FCC officials speaking not for attribution framed it as removing "unnecessary
and outdated rules."
Broadcasters have fought hard to preserve those rules saying they were at the
heart of localism, while cable operators have said they were an unnecessary
thumb on the scales for broadcasters in program negotiations and prevented them
from importing programming during retrans blackouts.
Chairman Wheeler seemed clearly in the cable camp in blogging about the order.
"These rules prevent an MVPD from providing subscribers an out-of-market
broadcast station, for example, when a retransmission consent dispute results
in a local station being dropped from carriage," he said. "In this item, the
Commission takes its thumb off the scales and leaves the scope of such
exclusivity to be decided by the parties, as we did in the Sports Blackout
Order last year. In so doing, the Commission would take 50-year old rules off
our books that have been rendered unnecessary by today’s marketplace.”
The item, being circulated to the other commissioners Wednesday (Aug. 12),
dovetails with another item just circulated launching the FCC's review of good
faith retrans negotiations.
The FCC had initially raised the spectra of excising the network
non-duplication and syndex rules under then chairman Julius Genachowski. The
FCC under Wheeler then proposed getting rid of them in a further notice of
proposed rulemaking attached to a report and order on retrans back in March
2014. The item being circulated is responsive to that further notice.
The National Association of Broadcasters earlier this year challenged the FCC's
silence, in its over-the-top video redefinition item, on how the network
non-duplication and syndicated exclusivity rules would apply, which it said is
essential to the concept of localism.
It got its answer Wednesday, which is that the chairman doesn't think they
should apply to any MVPDs.
That was only one of five Media Bureau items circulated Aug. 12. The others
were one on AM radio revitalization; an order allowing contest rules to be
placed online rather than have to be delivered orally, usually in
unintelligible rapid fire, or visually in small print, on-air; a DBS market
modification notice of proposed rulemaking to allow satellite operators to add
or delete communities in an effort to address the orphan counties issue.
The chairman outlined all the items in his blog post.