Ambitious Urban TV Multicast Plan Slammed by Cable, DirecTV
The most ambitious digital multicast must-carry plan was roundly criticized by the cable industry and largest U.S. satellite-TV operator, while small broadcasters offered some support. The request by Ion Media and media billionaire Robert Johnson for the FCC to grant Urban TV guaranteed pay- TV carriage for 42 multicast stations they'll run separate from the broadcaster’s existing properties (CD Nov 28 p6) also drew some support from Common Cause. Eleven minority groups, in joint comments late Monday, were the only filing we reviewed that gave unqualified support to the plan, which would start a network aimed at African-American and other minority viewers. Officials at Ion Media and RLJ Cos., Johnson’s company, told us their plan would boost media diversity.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
The NCTA said the applications for Urban TV are incomplete because they lack required documentation, missing a copy of the agreement to assign the new stations to Ion. The applications don’t demonstrate the assignee is financially qualified, and there aren’t licenses or construction permits to assign, the cable group said. The plan would “have the Commission create new rights for ION and its current and future business partners to commandeer additional bandwidth on privately-owned and financed cable systems,” with NCTA members owning some in all 42 markets Urban TV where would operate, it said. “While styled as a ’share-time’ license, in fact ION proposes to divide up digital spectrum that it does not own.”
The NCTA and DirecTV said the commission previously rejected must-carry status several times for multicast streams. The Urban TV application asks the regulator to “sanction an artifice designed to create multicast must-carry rights throughout the country,” said DirecTV. “ION and Urban seek to recharacterize their agreement in a transparent ploy to skirt the must-carry rules.” Approval of their petition would sap spot-beam capacity, as most already are filled up, DirecTV said. Such “new carriage rights” would “threaten the delivery of local service,” the satellite company added.
The Community Broadcasters Association said the FCC should let the “marketplace take its course” if Ion and RLJ want to share time on the broadcast company’s channels. It would be a “step forward” for the FCC to find that share-time programming streams are entitled to cable carriage, but that won’t increase media diversity, the low-power broadcaster group said. “The Transaction must be seen for what it is -- an infusion of financing from one of the nation’s wealthiest media owners, Robert L. Johnson, into an ailing broadcaster, ION,” it said. The issue of expanded carriage rights “has generated heated controversy between the broadcasting and cable television industries,” the CBA said.
Common Cause believes the Urban TV proposal is creative and expects to fully support FCC grant of the applications, it said. But it first needs more information from the parties, the group said. They haven’t given the FCC information about how Ion will be compensated for providing transmission services to Urban TV, among other issues, it said. But the application does closely resemble a Class S license proposal for DTV channels approved in October by the FCC’s diversity committee, Common Cause said.
Ion Media and RLJ Cos. are willing to give the FCC more information about their arrangement if the agency requests it, said their executives. “We've made it clear to each of the commissioners that we are willing to work with them in terms of providing information as well as creating protections that ensure that the service we provide is consistent with the public interest,” said Ion Executive Vice President John Lawson. “But we haven’t worked out, our two companies, all of the details between them at this stage” on “business terms,” so that paperwork isn’t available, he added. An RLJ spokeswoman confirmed that.
Lawson is “optimistic” the applications for Urban TV will be approved by the FCC, he said. “We're trying to bring media policy into the digital age, and nothing we've seen from any of the opposing filings surprises us.” There’s much pent-up demand for the type of programming Urban TV envisions, and among creative-types to provide scripts and ideas for shows, said Lawson and the RLJ spokeswoman. “What’s unfortunate is where there is a need for more diversity,” some in the pay-TV industry are balking, she said. “There is definitely a demand for people in the creative community that are looking to address the needs of the African-American and urban community.”
The FCC would significantly boost broadcast content and ownership diversity by approving the Urban TV proposal, said the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council, National Association of Advancement of Colored People, National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters and others. It pointed to Urban TV’s plan to broadcast at least seven hours weekly of national or local public affairs shows targeted at the communities it will serve. “When was the last time a television station application arrived at the FCC promising anything remotely like this?” asked the joint filing. “Or proposing to triple the number of African American owned television stations, all at once?”