Simington Calls for Virtual MVPD Record Refresh, Rethinking of FCC Media Oversight
Stakeholders and FCC commissioners “cannot engage in effective policy assessment of the linear video marketplace without transparent and complete access to timely information,” said Commissioner Nathan Simington in a letter agreeing with U.S. Senators calling for the FCC to refresh…
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the agency’s record on classifying linear streaming services as MVPDs. “We have no facts officially before us! And we really should. There’s an easy way to do it: refresh the record,” said the Commissioner’s letter. Simington said he’s not convinced the FCC has the authority to reclassify streamers as MVPDs and described his position on whether the agency can do so as “less strong” than the one laid out by FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel when she was a commissioner in 2014, when she said the agency did have such authority. Rosenworcel told Congress in March that she doesn't currently believe the agency’s powers extend to reclassifying streaming services. Simington said that he isn’t convinced that the FCC can discount language tying the definition of MVPD to spectrum and physical facilities but that he hasn’t prejudged the matter. Support for a record refresh shouldn’t be treated as meaning more “than a bona fide desire to learn more about a domain so as to more effectively and prudentially craft policy,” he said. Simington also called on Congress to “rethink the Commission’s role in the media marketplace.” If the FCC “were controlled by the enemies of localism who seek to destroy it, its recent actions in the media marketplace would be indistinguishable from those it recently has taken,” he said. The FCC should not be allowed to “feng shui the deck chairs on the legacy media Titanic,” Simington said. “Our hearts may go on, but our local news will go dark.”