Building Bridges Seen As Powell’s Top Challenge As New NCTA Chief

NCTA hired Michael Powell as president and CEO, the cable association confirmed Tuesday. That ended several months of speculation that the former Republican chairman of the FCC would get the top job at NCTA. Kyle McSlarrow is vacating that position at month’s end to work for Comcast. Powell will leave Providence Equity Partners, where he’s a senior adviser, to start at NCTA on April 25. He'll have his hands full trying to keep cable operators and programmers, including Comcast, in harmony on issues proving somewhat divisive, industry officials said. Those issues include net neutrality and retransmission consent deals, cable executives have said.

Executive Vice President James Assey had been seen as a contender for the top job at NCTA. He'll remain at the association in his current job, said an NCTA spokesman. Others said to have been possible picks to lead NCTA included FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell and John Kneuer, head of the NTIA during the administration of President George W. Bush. The spokesman declined to say what Powell might be paid. McSlarrow made about $2.6 million at the association in 2009 in total compensation.

Powell was the first FCC chairman during Bush’s administration, leading the regulator from 2001 to 2005 and overseeing some deregulation of the media and telecommunications industries. He approved an order lifting some ownership limits on media companies, that later was remanded to the FCC by an appeals court, and under him the Media Bureau found that giving cable subscribers the ability to buy channels individually wouldn’t save them money. But Powell also came up with four principles of net neutrality, later agreed to by all commissioners and released shortly after he left the agency. And during his chairmanship, the FCC classified cable modem as an information service, which later was upheld by the Supreme Court in the Brand X decision. The NCTA spokesman said Powell wasn’t available to speak about his new job.

Some within the cable industry see Powell as a good choice to take the helm of the association now, because of his background in trying to get stakeholders to agree on what will be needed on a number of issues at NCTA. That will include representing Comcast, having recently acquired control of NBC Universal, as well as pure-play operators ranging from No. 2 U.S. cable provider Time Warner Cable to Bend Broadband, with about 30,000 video subscribers. NCTA also represents cable programmers and vendors to both programmers and operators.

Several NCTA members told us they're happy with the hire of Powell, who they acknowledged will need to unite the sometimes disparate policy goals of programmers, operators and vendors. “He is going to do a fantastic job of balancing all the interests of the association,” said Viacom Executive Vice President DeDe Lea. Powell is “no stranger” to weighing competing needs, said Jason Friedrich, head of Motorola Mobility’s Washington office. “It can be challenging balancing the needs of the vendors, the content providers and the providers” of cable service, he said: “NCTA has always done a good job of that” and it ought to continue under Powell.

Among those outside the cable industry willing on Tuesday to weigh in on Powell’s hire, CEA President Gary Shapiro praised him as “a brilliant and articulate visionary” and a good choice for NCTA’s chief. Powell was “ahead of his time as FCC chairman and although we didn’t always agree, he was definitely strategic and future-focused,” Shapiro told us. “We especially appreciated his strong belief that cable should have a common interface with TV sets."

Powell’s experience running the FCC “will be valuable in managing issues like retrans and net neutrality, where there are obviously some differences among the members” of NCTA, said MF Global analyst Paul Gallant, who was an aide to Powell during his FCC chairmanship. Others close to Powell have said he appeared to have sought the top job at NCTA as a way of getting more involved with politics and policy and that he may have grown bored at Providence Equity, which has extensive investments in media assets.

Others weren’t so laudatory about Powell being picked by the NCTA. “If you wonder why common sense, public interest policies never see the light of day in Washington, look no further than the furiously spinning revolving door between industry and the FCC,” Free Press Managing Director Craig Aaron said in a written statement. “Powell is the natural choice to lead the nation’s most powerful cable lobby, having looked out for the interests of companies like Comcast and Time Warner during his tenure at the Commission and having already served as a figurehead for the industry front group Broadband for America.” Powell has been co-chairman of the group.