[opendtv] Re: News: FCC Conflicted Over Digital Carriage
- From: "John Willkie" <jmwillkie@xxxxxxx>
- To: <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2004 10:48:05 -0700
Simple question: who defines what the "primary digital channel" is?
Retrans consent contracts are for three years. What guarantee is there that
the "primary digital channel" at the beginning of a contract term is still
the "primary digital channel" at the end?
This can cut both ways. If a station carries a new channel that becomes the
hot one on their transport a few years down the road, cable will have to
come hat in hand and pay money, or do without.
Most of these articles are acting like this is fighting "the last war." We
have no real idea how the next cable-broadcast war will be fought. Not a
clue, since the future is still being invented.
John Willkie
-----Original Message-----
From: opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Craig Birkmaier
Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2004 8:05 AM
To: OpenDTV Mail List
Subject: [opendtv] News: FCC Conflicted Over Digital Carriage
FCC Conflicted Over Digital Carriage
By Steve McClellan -- Broadcasting & Cable, 4/21/2004 11:58:00 AM
The digital divide was in evidence in Las Vegas Tuesday, and that was
just among the Federal Communications Commission members who must try
to help bridge it.
Sorting out public interest obligations and must-carry privileges for
broadcasters in the digital age is a "chicken and egg" question, says
FCC Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy.
Public interest obligations "are very different if [broadcasters]
get must-carry rights," Abernathy told a gathering of NAB attendees
Tuesday. "It's hard to separate the two issues."
Broadcasters believe cable should have to carry its full digital
signal, no matter how they subdivide it. Cable counters that it
should only have to carry the primary digital signal, and that to
have to carry several channels from each station would eat up
capacity, push off niche cable nets they might prefer to carry and
mess up the cable economic model.
Or, to borrow the egg analogy, broadcasters want the FCC to require
cable's basket to carry all their eggs, while cable says that would
be tantamount to poaching its channel capacity and editorial control.
Commissioner Kevin Martin said "the most important thing" that the
FCC can do to help complete the transition to digital is clarify the
must-carry issue. The NAB crowd certainly agrees. NAB Chairman Eddie
Fritts called on the commission in no uncertain terms to make that
decision as soon as possible.
If Abernathy is correct, then clarity on public interest is equally
as important as clarity on must carry. And the commissioners so far
can't seem to agree on what the new public interest standard, if any,
should be in the digital world.
Democratic Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein
reiterated their stand for specific, quantifiable obligations,
echoing their support earlier in the day of a coalition of activist
groups seeking such standards.
At that press conference outside the Las Vegas Convention Center site
of the NAB annual convention, the two endorsed the proposal of a
coalition of public interest groups, including Common Cause and The
Alliance for Better Campaigns, that would require broadcasters to
program a minimum of three hours a week of public interest
programming on a station's primary channel, as well as program at
least a quarter of its primary channel's prime time with
independently produced shows.
Martin has problems with that.
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