Markey and Blumenthal 'Misread' STELAR, NCTA Says

NCTA again Friday pushed back against claims from Sens. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., this time in an unsigned blog post. It initially issued a statement Thursday after a news release from the two senators decrying the state of the retail set-top box marketplace and what they judged high costs consumers have to pay (see 1507300057). “Regrettably, however, their claims misread the STELAR [Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act Reauthorization] statute, the impact of changes that were supported on a bipartisan basis, and the state of the video device marketplace,” NCTA said Friday. “It’s simply not accurate to say that ‘cable companies will no longer be required to make their services compatible with outside set-top boxes, like TiVo for example, bought directly by consumers in the retail marketplace,’ thereby ‘doom[ing] consumers to being captive to cable company rental fees forever.’ In fact, the STELAR provision at issue -- the sunset of the FCC's much-maligned ‘integration ban’ rule -- does not affect the market for retail devices.” NCTA promised further updates on the issue: “In future blog posts, we’ll highlight what the cable industry is doing to provide consumers more options for viewing TV content on retail devices.”