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At it’s meeting on Thursday, the FCC announced that it is commencing a proceeding that would require cable systems to adopt measures to insure that over-the-air television stations would continue to be available even to analog cable subscribers after the end of the digital television subscribers.  This might include some sort of dual carriage requirement…

On Thursday, the FCC issued its Report on violent programming on television, finding that such programming has a negative impact on the well being of children, and suggesting that Congressional action to restrict and regulate such programming would be appropriate.  A summary of the findings of the Commission can be found in our firm’s bulletin on the Report, here.  As we point out in our bulletin, the Commission did not adopt this report with a united voice, as both Commissioner Adelstein and McDowell expressed concerns about the thoroughness of the report, the practicality and constitutionality of drawing lines between permitted and prohibited violence in programming, and even whether the government is the proper forum for restricting access to such programming or whether this isn’t fundamentally an issue of family and parental control. 

The Report suggests that legislative action to restrict violent programming  or to channel it to certain time periods might be appropriate as parents are often not home when children watch television, and technological controls, like the V-Chip, are ineffective as parents don’t know that they exist or, if they are aware of the existence of the controls, they don’t know how to activate them.  The Commission also suggests that the ratings given to programs are not always accurate.  An interesting alternate take can be found in an article in Slate, here, citing a study not mentioned by the FCC finding that parents, even when carefully educated about the V-Chip and its uses, do not use it.  This seems to indicate that parents are not as concerned about the issue as is the FCC, and suggests that the real motivation is not restricting what is presented to children, but instead what is available to adults.

Continue Reading Violence on Television – FCC Issues Report Suggesting That Congressional Action Is Appropriate

The Copyright Office last week released a wide-ranging Notice of Inquiry, asking many questions about the statutory licenses that allow cable and satellite companies to retransmit broadcast television signals without getting the specific approval of all the copyright holders who provide programming to the television stations. The notice was released so that the Copyright Office can prepare a report to Congress, due June of 2008, in which it will present its views as to whether the various statutory licenses still perform a necessary function, and whether any reforms of the current licenses are necessary. To complete its report, the Notice asks many questions about how these licenses currently work, whether the licenses function efficiently, and whether they should be retained, modified or abolished in favor of marketplace negotiations. The Notice even asks whether the existing statutory licenses should be expanded to take into account the different ways video programming is now delivered to the consumer, including various Internet and mobile delivery systems. Thus, virtually anyone involved in the video programming world may want to be part of this proceeding. Comments are due July 2 and reply comments are due September 13.

The cable and satellite statutory licenses were adopted by Congress to allow these multi-channel video systems to retransmit broadcast  signals. Without these licenses, the individual owners of copyrighted material – including syndicated,  network, sports, and music programming — would have to be consulted to secure necessary copyright approval before the television signal could be retransmitted. As the multi-channel video providers would, in many cases, not even know who held all these rights, they instead pay a statutory license which is collected, pooled, and then distributed to the various rights holders in proportions agreed to by those copyright holders or, in the absence of agreement, set by the Copyright Royalty Board.Continue Reading Copyright Office Begins Inquiry to Reexamine Cable and Satellite Statutory Licenses – and Asks if Statutory Licenses are Appropriate for Internet Video

The FCC’s agenda for its meeting to be held on Wednesday, April 25, contains four separate items related to the digital television transition.  The issue receiving the most press coverage is the proposal advanced by Chairman Martin that would require the cable carriage of television signals in both analog and digital formats until all cable…

This week, the FCC released its Order on Video Franchising Requirements, setting out rules that require that municipalities timely process requests by companies for local franchises for multi-channel video systems to compete with existing cable systems.  For details of this ruling and the issues to be resolved in a Further rulemaking proceeding, you can read our…

By now, everyone knows that XM and Sirius have announced plans to merge into a single nationwide satellite radio service provider.  This plan is, of course, subject to approval of the FCC.  The NAB has announced plans to oppose the merger, and Congress today scheduled hearings on the matter, to be held next week.  The obvious issues to be considered by the Department of Justice and the FCC will be whether the merger will be anti-competitive and whether it will serve the public interest.  But there are numerous other legal issues, possibly affecting other FCC proceedings, that may well come out of the consideration of this merger.

For instance, the merger raises the question of whether satellite radio is a unique market that should not be allowed to consolidate into a monopoly, or whether there is a broader "market" for audio programming encompassing not only satellite radio, but also traditional over-the-air radio, iPods, Internet radio, and other forms of audio entertainment.  While the opponents of the merger may argue that satellite radio is a unique market, such a finding may affect the broadcast multiple ownership proceeding, where some broadcasters are advancing arguments similar to the satellite companies in hopes that the FCC will loosen multiple ownership restrictions. 

Another issue that seemingly will be raised by the merger is how important a la carte programming is to FCC Chairman Martin.  The Chairman has been pushing both satellite and cable television companies to allow consumers to purchase only the channels that they want rather than whole packages of channels.  He has argued that consumers could save money by buying only the channels that they want, and consumers could also avoid programing that they don’t want (like adult oriented content).  Service providers have countered that forcing the unbundling of program tiers will make it economically unfeasible to offer many of the more niche program channels.  Published reports indicate that part of the merger proposal to be advanced by the satellite companies may include a proposal for a la carte pricing.  Thus, this case may show how important the Chairman really believes such offerings are – and whether that offering may help tilt the public interest considerations in the proceeding.Continue Reading XM and Sirius – The Issues Beyond the Issues

In a decision released last week on an increasingly common issue, the FCC refused to get involved in a retransmission consent negotiation dispute between a cable television system and a television station.  The dispute involved Sinclair Broadcasting’s demands for cash consideration for the carriage of its television stations by cable systems owned by Mediacom Communications. …