Telecom Act Update Still ‘Makes Sense’ to Genachowski
CHICAGO -- Updating the Telecom Act is something FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski still thinks is a good idea, and in the meantime the agency has broadband challenges that require immediate attention, he said Wednesday. He expanded on remarks Friday from his chief of staff on a new broadband initiative (CD June 13 p6), with Genachowski saying he'll work with other commissioners to get it underway. He agreed with comments Tuesday at the Cable Show by NCTA CEO Michael Powell, with whom Genachowski engaged in a Q-and-A, that “regulatory humility” is good.
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"The statute is imperfect,” Genachowski said of the 1996 legislation, of which he noted he’s previously said an update is a good idea. But “it does give the FCC I think ample flexibility” to look “across the landscape … to promote competition fairly,” he said. “It would make sense to update it” and at some point the act will be revised, Genachowski said: For now he’s “trying to be concrete about what the challenges are, trying to figure out” solutions.
Genachowski said he shares Powell’s desire for “regulatory humility” (CD June 15 p6). There’s an “appropriate humility about what government can accomplish and what the risks are if the commission makes a mistake,” Genachowski said. That includes a recognition that “there aren’t really any precooked answers to problems,” he added. It involves “making sure that the staff of the agency, as they want to do in a dispassionate way, are asking what exactly are our goals, what are the challenges to meeting those goals” and “being neutral about whether government action is the way to do it,” he said.
Genachowski asked cable to start more C-SPAN-like channels covering individual states, as sought by an FCC report done under his auspices on the future of the media industry (CD June 10 p1). “One of the great accomplishments of the cable industry has been the launch of C-SPAN,” yet there are only four states with such channels, Genachowski said. “More state C-SPANs can help the local information landscape” and “I encourage the industry, as the report did, to look really hard at this.” Powell responded that the sector will “continue to look at ways to provide better local and community information."
After ticking off several cable operators that have made progress in selling broadband to those who didn’t previously buy it, Genachowski said “I am calling on the cable industry, other industries in the broadband economy to step up and help close the broadband gap.” He sought “public-private” sector solutions. The FCC confirmed Tuesday night that the Broadband Adoption Task Force will be led by Genachowski’s senior counselor, Josh Gottheimer. Executives on a later panel at the NCTA’s show discussed how they're using the Internet to extend the reach to subscribers of their products.
"This fat pipe that reaches 93 percent of the country gives us an advantage in the global economy,” Genachowski said of cable broadband. “The fact that we're moving faster more than the rest of the world in 4G wireless is another advantage that we have” in the U.S., he added. “Cable has a positive role to play in the wireless competition landscape,” with some operators also providing wireless service. Of products from Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Time Warner Inc. and others, “all of these are great signs of innovation, and the cable industry understanding that the mobile platform is a great thing,” Genachowski said.
Cable executives sought to expand how much programming is delivered to various devices, while ensuring programmers and distributors get paid and ad views measured, on a later panel. “It’s not about a zero-sum pie,” Time Warner Cable President Rob Marcus said: “I think there’s an opportunity to actually expand the pie” because “customers want to pay one time” for their programming and want simple ways to get it. Cable channels may look for more ads to pay for the cost of programming, Scripps Networks CEO Ken Lowe said. “We're probably going to become a little more dependent on advertising” with increasing cable subscriber use of new technologies, he said. “I don’t think we can … as an industry, continue to look at the consumer and expect him or her to pay the price,” he added.
"There is a lot of blocking and tackling that needs to be done in order to take advantage of what is a tremendous opportunity for us,” with cable viewing on the rise, said Fox Networks Group President David Haslingden. For Insight Communications CEO Michael Willner, services provided by cable even if not via traditional methods ought to count as video services when it comes to newer devices. “The actual adopting of the methodologies that we all have available to us to measure” audience size “are still being considered by a lot of people who focus on advertising as their main livelihood,” Willner said: “There needs to be an aggressiveness on accepting new ways of measuring” as “it means that that set-top box or that log” of viewing “may or may not be accurate.”