Easing the Digital Burden
By Jonathan Adelstein, FCC -- Multichannel News, 8/5/2007 6:00:00 PM MT
The following is an excerpt from Federal Communications Commission member Jonathan Adelstein’s comments delivered via videoconference to attendees of The Independent Show in Monterey, Calif., on July 31:
As you all know, the FCC, on two occasions, found that we didn’t have a sufficient basis to mandate multicast must-carry. One of the reasons I continue to believe that was the correct decision is that commercial broadcasters were unwilling to negotiate real public interest obligations to ensure the public gets their end of the bargain.
It would be unwise and prohibitively burdensome, especially for smaller cable operators, to require carriage of programming that doesn’t serve the community in a clearly identifiable way.
For instance, I’m quite concerned with some proposals to use the impending DTV transition as an opportunity to extract concession from cable operators or to impose certain carriage obligations that Congress didn’t envision.
The FCC’s decision-making process regarding set-top waivers is of great concern to me. In 1996, Congress clearly directed the Commission to adopt regulations to ensure the commercial availability of navigation devices to all [multichannel-video] consumers. And in 1998, the FCC adopted the integration ban which established a date after which cable operators would be prohibited from deploying integrated devices.
The FCC, though, made it clear that we would consider waivers for integrated digital cable boxes with limited capability. It seems clear from our precedent that our decision whether to grant waivers would be based on functionality of the box.
A cable operator shouldn’t have to be unprofitable or willing to meet a congressional deadline for over-the-air broadcasters to go all-digital, in order to qualify for a set-top box waiver. … This is especially unfair and burdensome on smaller cable operators who don’t have ready access to the resources to invest in building all-digital cable systems within 18 months. At the end of the day, the FCC’s approach may lead to higher cable prices. And it doesn’t advance the digital transition in any meaningful way.
In another proceeding, some argue for using the DTV transition cutoff date as a mandate to impose carriage requirements on the cable operators. Based on the very remote, speculative possibility that cable subscribers with analog TV sets “could” lose their analog signals after the digital transition, some are proposing that cable operators either carry every bit of the broadcast signal in analog and digital form, or carry the signal only in digital, provided that the cable system is all-digital.
While I haven’t made up my mind, I believe that we shouldn’t limit the entire cable industry to these two options. Instead, we should first seek comment on a set of objective questions that considers all options and doesn’t prejudge the outcome or weigh heavily against viable alternatives. Perhaps cable operators should be allowed to convert digital signals into a format can be transmitted to and viewed by all subscribers. And, since the FCC twice determined that dual carriage is not required by law, the cable operator should be permitted to choose whether to provide dual carriage for must-carry stations.
Limiting cable operators to a choice of dual carriage or deploying expensive digital set-top boxes throughout their footprint rejects outright the possibility of other workable, negotiated solutions that have been supported by many members of Congress.
Target: Program Access
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