WGAW, TiVo, NCTA Lobby Commissioners on Set-top NPRM

Lobbying over a coming FCC NPRM to untie set-top boxes (see 1602100036) from mostly being provided only by multichannel video programming distributors continued, filings Wednesday and Thursday in docket 15-64 and other statements showed. Allowing consumers to access content from multiple sources on one device would "limit the power of traditional content gatekeepers,” the Writer’s Guild of America, West said about coming FCC set-top box proposals in meetings this week with Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel and aides to Chairman Tom Wheeler, an ex parte filing posted Thursday said. “Seven companies (CBS, Disney, Discovery, Fox, NBCU, Time Warner and Viacom) control almost all television programming and a handful of MVPDs control how that content is distributed to consumers.” The proposals would increase consumer costs, and threaten security and copyright, NCTA said in meetings with aides to Commissioner Ajit Pai. TiVo has been providing consumers with “a competitive set-top box option for over a decade without any of the parade of horribles” listed by NCTA, TiVo said in meetings with Rosenworcel, Pai, Clyburn and aides to Commissioner Mike O’Rielly, according to an ex parte filing. Also Thursday, the Future of TV Coalition, which unveiled itself the day the FCC said the NPRM was coming, said broadcasters are opposing what the rulemaking would seek. "Big news in the AllVid debate" as NAB "went on record with deep concerns about the FCC’s AllVid proposal," the MVPD- and programmer-backed group said, citing NAB CEO Gordon Smith's comments to be shown this weekend on C-SPAN (see 1602100066). "This development is critical because the organization that is so deeply rooted in the local broadcast TV ecosystem is pulling the curtain back on the real motives and hidden costs of the AllVid rule." AllVid was something the previous FCC chairman pursued to try to let consumers access encrypted MVPD programming from sources other than pay-TV-provided set-tops, which the current FCC has said is off the table.