MCNBRIEFS

Obama Launches Cybersecurity Offensive

WASHINGTON — The White House continues to woo broadband networks and other critical infrastructure firms for its proposal to help better protect their networks and facilities from cyber attacks.

At a USTelecom-sponsored policy briefing here last week, Ari Schwartz, senior policy adviser to the Secretary of Commerce, called the president’s cybersecurity executive order a “down payment on future legislation.”

Schwartz pointed out that the order was confined to what the president could do without legislation and was prompted by the combination of growing cyber threats and the failure to pass bipartisan legislation in the last Congress.

At a March 7 Senate hearing, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano outlined the five elements the administration was looking for in bipartisan cybersecurity legislation:

1) Incorporate privacy and civil liberties;

2) Create information sharing standards;

3) Provide additional tools to fight cybercrime;

4) Create a data breach reporting requirement; and

5) Give the Department of Homeland Security hiring authority equivalent to the National Security Agency.

Court Upholds FCC’s WealthTV Ruling

WASHINGTON — The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week declined to review the Federal Communications Commission’s decision that Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications, Comcast and Bright House Networks did not discriminate against WealthTV in favor of their own joint-venture channel, MOJO.

The court agreed with the FCC that the cable ops had denied carriage for legitimate, nondiscriminatory business reasons and that WealthTV could not prove the two channels were similarly situated, which was a requirement for a showing of discrimination. The 9th Circuit said it found WealthTV’s arguments “unpersuasive,” and said the FCC’s finding that the two channels were not similarly situated was supported by “substantial evidence.”

“We are disappointed with the decision,” Charles Herring, president of WealthTV owner Herring Broadcasting, said. “We’re still reviewing it and we are considering our options.”

In a statement, Comcast said it was pleased the “drawnout” litigation was over and described WealthTV’s allegations as “baseless.”

ACA: Looking to School the FCC

WASHINGTON — The leadership of the American Cable Association appears laser-focused on the issue of reforming retransmission consent, which the organization suggests means cracking down on media consolidation and schooling the Federal Communications Commission on the business realities faced by small and midsized independent cable operators.

That came out in a roundtable discussion with reporters at the annual ACA Summit here last week. Participating were ACA president Matt Polka, Colleen Abdoulah of WideOpenWest, chairman; Bob Gessner of MCTV (formerly Massillon Cable), vice chairman; and Steve Friedman of Wave Broadband, chairman ex-officio.

They were all asked what they would do if they could be FCC chairman for a day, the same question Polka had asked commissioner Ajit Pai in an earlier Q&A session.

Polka said he would focus on the trio of media ownership, retransmission consent and the practice of coordinated negotiations among stations in the same market that are not under the same ownership. The rest agreed, with Abdoulah adding that building accountability into the regulatory and legislative processes would be a huge accomplishment. Gessner pointed out that a lot of time has passed since the FCC opened its retrans proceeding, but “there is no smoke coming out of the chimney.”