Content Companies, PK Show Openness to MVPD Set-Top Plan

Content companies and supporters of the FCC set-top plan expressed increased openness to the pay-TV apps-based compromise proposal after a week of meetings on the topic at the commission, according to ex parte filings in docket 16-42 and interviews. The pay-TV plan is “a preferred baseline for developing final rules,” Scripps Networks Interactive told the FCC, said a filing on a meeting that included Content and Distribution Marketing President Henry Ahn. Public Knowledge Senior Staff Attorney John Bergmayer told us the PK-backed FCC plan “is the bee's knees,” but the Consumer Video Choice Coalition, of which PK is a member, isn't locked into any particular technology to accomplish its set-top policy goals.

TiVo, a CVCC member, has also said it's "not wedded to any particular approach to enabling retail competition in the navigation devices market," That's "as long as such approach(es) enable meaningful competition and give consumers meaningful choices among devices and apps with competitive user interfaces and complementary features,” TiVo said in an ex parte that included harsh words for the multichannel video programming distributor plan (see 1606290058). The plan has been backed by Commissioner Mike O'Rielly (see 1606280052).

Bergmayer called the MVPD-backed plan “constructive,” but said it leaves numerous questions unanswered, a sentiment shared by a content company official in an interview. “We're still trying to determine what the proposal is,” the official said, saying the plan submitted by NCTA and AT&T was roughly a page long, dwarfed by the amount of detail available from the FCC plan. Content company officials have said the MVPD plan appears to do more to address concerns about copyright protection and security than the FCC plan. “The precise mechanism by which MVPDs propose to provide such apps to diverse hardware and software platforms, and the technical specifics of such apps, remain unclear,” said Public Knowledge President Gene Kimmelman and representatives of Free Press, the National Hispanic Media Coalition and Writers Guild of America, West in a meeting with aides to Chairman Tom Wheeler last week.

“Constructive” was also the terminology used by several content companies in meetings with the FCC about the MVPD plan. Ex parte filings from Time Warner and a joint filing from CBS, Disney, Scripps, Viacom and Time Warner called the MVPD plan a “constructive foundation” to build on. The content companies stopped short of outright endorsement of the pay-TV plan. The MVPD plan needs to include “certain additional protections for programmers” and requires “the clarification of particular details,” the programmers said.

Dish and EchoStar challenged the whole concept of a set-top plan that would work for all MVPDs, in their filing. Since the set-top rulemaking doesn't ask how the set-top plan would affect DBS providers, “it does not provide the notice and opportunity for meaningful comment by satellite providers required under the Administrative Procedure Act,” Dish and EchoStar said. “The Commission cannot adopt rules for satellite systems without issuing a further notice describing alternative approaches for satellite operators.”