[opendtv] Re: MVPD Definition

  • From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 17 Aug 2015 23:30:02 +0000

Craig Birkmaier wrote:

The MVPD is supposed to supply the "transmission path," MVPDs claim.
Craig feels obliged, for his own political motives, to deny this.

ACTUALLY I have found several and posted them f during these
discussions.

This was your recent response, Craig:

No, Craig, the definition is not at all as clear as you feel
the need to pretend.

First off, the MVPDs themselves disagree with your view. They
think being an MVPD depends on owning the facilities. Of
COURSE they need to support that point of view. Because a big
part of being an MVPD is that you have that local monopoly.
Allowing others access to your same customers, with that same
walled-in content, simply won't do. Bad enough OTT services
exist.

Not true.

If what I said was "not true," then why are you contradicting yourself now?
Especially when the FCC itself asks, in the NPRM you quoted:

"We also seek comment on an alternative interpretation that would require a
programming distributor to have control over a transmission path to qualify as
an MVPD."

So like I said, the definition of VMVPD is not set in concrete yet, by any
means, and ownership of the delivery pipe is still in play.

As expected the cable industry tries to protect itself from
new competition based on outdated regulations.

Which I also said, above, same paragraph that you claimed was "not true."

I think that the lawyers of the FCC, and the trade scribes, are now trying to
hang their hats on this requirement for "linear/live streams." Perhaps that's
because they think that the mention and definition of "channels," in the
current definition of MVPD, implies that these "channels" transmit linear
streams. So, let's hang onto that idea, they figure, and require the VMVPD to
carry linear streams.

But that's bogus too. "Channel" applies EQUALLY to on demand content, when on
demand content is transmitted using the non-IP techniques the MVPDs have
offered, since 2001. These are, in fact, channel-switched services too. So the
requirement for "linear streams" is pretty silly. It makes no sense
technically, and even market-wise. We are living in a time when any service
that supplies only linear streams is going oh-so out of fashion.

Besides which, any OTT service, if intent on exploiting the new definition of
VMVPD, should have little trouble cobbling up some BS "linear streams," just to
meet the letter of the law. Assuming that's how this law is written. And like
I've said more than once, this would make the term VMVPD and OTT completely
interchangeable.

Ultimately, what is going to happen is that both new entrants in the market,
and the traditional MVPDs, are going to morph into OTT sites. With national
footprint and, by necessity, offering different services and bundles. Quite
unlike what the traditional MVPDs got away with.

Bert



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