[opendtv] Re: MVPD Definition

  • From: Albert Manfredi <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sat, 22 Aug 2015 18:47:20 -0400

Craig wrote:

The Syndex and network non duplication rule changes that Wheeler is proposing
are not a done deal yet. Proposals to rescind these rules have failed
multiple
times over the past decade. We have not even seen a NPRM yet, so don't count
your chickens...yet.

Doesn't matter. The point is that the FCC is pushing for this, and yet they
haven't seen the illogic about applying the now-irrelevant MVPD rules to
Internet sites.

Walled garden business models exist all over the Internet Bert.

Craig tries to go back to square 1. We have covered this a ton of times. Search
back.

Network
neutrality rules do not address business models, they just assure that an ISP
cannot block or disadvantage a service. In the context of MVPD services this
means that a cable ISP cannot disadvantage a Virtual MVPD using their
broadband
pipes.

When content owners have to deal with a locally monopolistic gatekeeper, of a
medium that has no neutrality mandates, then MVPD rules make sense. When the
content owners can put their content on a guaranteed-to-be-neutral network,
sourcing that content from wherever makes sense (i.e. not depending on one
single gatekeeper head end), then the MVPD rules are unnecessary.

This should not take so much effort to get across, Craig. It's rather obvious.
Equally obvious is that the owners of the TV content are NOT invoking any
worthless VMVPD rules. They are setting up new distribution models with no need
for any new FCC regulations. This too should not require so much effort to get
across.

Internet MVPD services already exist, so it is absurd to say that the FCC is
trying to create them.

Name a single example of broadband access in which all of the Internet TV
content the broadband subscriber can receive is controlled by the headend of
the broadband PON or coax passively-split network. You cannot. Therefore, since
this is patently obvious, and Craig continues to pretend he doesn't get it, I
have to assume he has this hidden political agenda, which he denies. No one can
keep insisting on something so absurd, without a hidden agenda.

The FCC has no authority to nullify local franchise agreements or contracts
between the content owners and MVPDs. They do have the authority to extend
the
Program Access Rules to Virtual MVPDs and to require Virtual MVPDs to deliver
local broadcast signals to subscribers in that market, IF they offer
broadcast
signals at all.

There is no need to extend any such authority, because the technical
limitations that required such rules before do not exist over the neutral
Internet. Content owners can make whatever agreements they like, on the new
medium. Old agreements they had on a legacy medium can either remain, until
that service is sunset, or they can be rewritten. The govt has nothing to say
about this. Content owners have all the clout.
So why did Congress require the FCC to create the Program Access Rules in the
1992 Cable Act?

If they wanted to maintain local monopolies, why would they tell the FCC to
create rules to assure that competitors could access the same programming.

Reality is that the one or two supposedly competing MVPDs do not compete. That
model, those technologies, don't allow meaningful competition. And with
broadband service in the equation, even less so (on the non-neutral part of the
pipe), because DBS is left out. Verizon FiOS is only available for 20% of
Verizon subscribers, meaning 20% may have two choices, instead of just one. So
give it up, Craig.

When there is no distribution competition, the content owners have a lot more
leverage. They can force people to pay them welfare checks, for instance. With
distribution competition, that can't happen. People won't put up with paying
welfare checks (except Craig). So Craig, check out the publication date of RFC
1889, and maybe then you'll understand why any rules made in 1992 are
irrelevant to today.

You are the only person I have seen in this forum with angst about linear
streams.
They are the most important content the MVPDs offer,

More absurdity. If they're so important, Craig, explain why the clear majority
of TV watching doesn't even these so-coveted "linear streams."

Just ask Sony, which has failed to cut a deal with ESPN for the Play Station
Vue service. Or ask Dish why they cannot secure a deal with The Fox News
Channel for the Sling service.

Makes no difference anymore. ESPN has agreed with Sling TV, an OTT site every
bit as much as Sony's, and as ESPN subscribers continue to decline, John
Skipper will make deals with these other OTT sites. He does not need to be
coerced. He'll do so because it's in his own interest. That is what competition
does. Instead, if there is no significant competition, then ESPN and others can
play a lot more hardball, as I've explained to you multiple times.

Bert



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