Powell Wants ‘Regulation Pruning,’ He Says In First NCTA Speech
CHICAGO -- The NCTA’s Michael Powell wants fewer regulations as the cable industry puts its energy toward dealing with technological changes, he said in his first public speech as CEO of the association. There should be a high threshold for new rules and old ones ought to be reviewed with an eye toward doing away with some, Powell said at Tuesday’s opening of the Cable Show. The industry doesn’t need regulatory challenges as it grapples with how to serve and keep existing subscribers who want content online and want to see it on mobile devices.
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"We look for government to set an appropriate high hurdle for new regulation, and we urge them to spend as much time pruning regulation as planting the seeds” for new rules, Powell said. “We will always urge a little regulatory humility,” he said: “Gratefully, we are a formidable association to meet” any challenges, with members that are small and big operators, programmers and companies that both create content and deliver it. Technological changes “are challenging enough without” any “government overhang,” the former FCC chairman said.
The cable industry must be “vigilant and take a lead role” in anticipating problems and educating policymakers and consumers, Powell said. “The interplay between networks, wired and wireless, programming, traditional and online, and Web products and devices will present multidimensional problems and challenges,” Powell said. “Business and technological evolution” will carry opportunities and “anxiety” for the industry, he said. “The Internet taught us a bit is a bit. Innovative consumer devices are teaching us glass is glass. And you need to be everywhere to remain relevant."
The industry needs to do better in delivering content to cable subscribers, and it’s been several years since some efforts to do that in new ways were begun, said News Corp. Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey on a later panel. “We have to do a better job of bringing these things [out] for consumers,” and “our rights are our backbone,” he said. “It can’t just be the Wild West, you have to have a structure … but within that, we have to do a better job of bringing these things forward in the marketplace.” Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman said TV “is the foundation for a lot of the viewing that takes place.” Nielsen doesn’t track ratings of shows seen on all mobile devices, making it harder to put more programming on consumer electronics, he said: “We need to have the technological obstacles overcome and we need to see the monetization obstacles overcome."
There’s been a “buyer-seller tension” among operators and programmers for decades, and News Corp.’s goal is to “work constructively with the broader industry,” Carey said. “This is about value,” he said when asked about last year’s blackout on Cablevision of several Fox TV stations owned by News Corp. Retransmission consent, “when you're changing sort of a traditional practice, there is probably more friction than normal,” between buyers and sellers of cable content, Carey said. “We had to change the path that the broadcast model was on."
Cord cutting, where cable subscribers cancel their video subscriptions, is “barely measurable,” Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt said, echoing several other panelists. “There is no evidence that any but a handful of customers don’t want the big package” of channels now sold in bundles, yet “there are people who want something smaller,” he said. Britt acknowledged the industry’s “economics” make that hard to achieve, he said: “I think it would serve us well to worry about that group.” Time Warner Inc. CEO Jeff Bewkes sees the Internet industry bringing cable a “good interface” to deliver content, he said. “Let’s all cheer up,” he said when asked whether cable faces the same digital hurdles now as the music industry did in the past. “This is not the music industry,” Bewkes said to laughter. “It’s morning in the cable industry."
The key is “to agree on business models that we all support” given the many billions of dollars at stake, Cox Communications CEO Pat Esser said. “People are looking for scale, for efficiency” among U.S. companies, he said when asked if there will be more mergers and acquisitions like Comcast’s purchase this year of control in NBCUniversal. It’s “a very fast-moving marketplace,” Esser said. Comcast Cable President Neil Smit said he would like to see conversations between distributors and programmers “on a more frequent basis.” Discussing prospects for more M&A, he said the “experimentation” among various Comcast-controlled businesses that’s come with the NBCUniversal deal is positive, but doesn’t require a merger. “We're not seeing any evidence of cord cutting now,” he said, so “let’s never give the consumer a reason to make the cord cut.”