LAS VEGAS -- It may take a few years for TV Everywhere, which gives users online and mobile access to broadcast, cable and other programming, to work out remaining ease-of-use issues and meet consumer expectations, executives predicted. In comments during and after a CES panel Thursday, cable operator and programming insiders said multichannel video programming distributors and owners of broadcast and cable content have worked out many of the initial kinks. And now that contracts are largely in place for MVPDs to distribute online and on-demand most programming that they have rights to show on TV, the table has been set for all parts of the industry to give consumers the ease of use and ability to search that they expect, the executives said.

LAS VEGAS -- Antitrust regulation alone can't fully address net neutrality, said FTC Democratic Commissioners Julie Brill and Terrell McSweeny Wednesday on a CES panel. CEA Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Julie Kearney moderated the panel, which saw bipartisan agreement that the FTC's common-carrier exemption barring it from regulating telecom companies should be removed if broadband is deemed a Title II service. Speaking earlier in the day at the show, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler confirmed that the agency is moving to deem broadband a Title II Communications Act service (see 1501070054). Other FCC commissioners also debated net neutrality on a panel (see 1501080032) just before the FTC one.

LAS VEGAS -- The nascent move toward 5G wireless networks won’t leave behind 4G and other advancements to carrier networks, predicted executives from carriers and device and network equipment makers. They said some smart and other devices using the Internet of Things may use 4G for the foreseeable future, especially those that are sold now or are already deployed. Some speakers at a CES panel Wednesday, and in answers to our question from the audience, described the move toward 5G as an evolution to what they characterized as already robust networks.

LAS VEGAS -- This year and next are prime periods to pass a Communications Act rewrite, said a Verizon executive, as a key aide to House Communications Subcommittee Republicans said staff is hard at work on the issue. Verizon General Counsel Craig Silliman said on a panel at CES that there's a "two-year window here" for subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., and the administration to make the concept of modernizing a law last updated in 1996 a reality. There are "a number of people who would like to get something done," he said. Subcommittee staffers are "busily preparing" to "get out some ideas about a Communications Act update," said Chief Counsel David Redl. Horse trading among stakeholders could make it easier to pass an update to the act, he said Wednesday.

The revolving door rotates freely in government public relations. At just one federal agency with about 1,700 total employees, at least 14 public relations experts and lawyers who advise on issues including PR came or left during the Obama administration. Careers of PR practitioners exiting the FCC since about Jan. 21, 2009, spanned the gamut. Some job changes resembled the traditional revolving door, with officials leaving for the industries their employer used to regulate, others were so-called reverse revolvers coming to the agency from entities that lobbied the FCC, while other career paths were less orthodox and don't fall under the revolving door rubric at all. That is according to Communications Daily Freedom of Information Act requests, other records and interviews with those who reviewed our database.

Simple, repeated steps taken consistently when multichannel video programming distributors are acquired are the only way to prevent customer inconveniences from becoming so great that they cancel service, said veterans of past MVPD takeovers. They said if AT&T, Charter Communications and Comcast don't want their already-low reputations with consumers to slide further after $130 billion-plus in pending purchases, they must improve on the steps that serial acquirers have taken to minimize disruption. Buyers are prone to combine operations too quickly, leading to glitches that anger customers, and don't account for how problems will hurt employee morale and distract staff, said consultants and executives.

Media coverage of net neutrality issues including the FCC NPRM is uneven, agreed experts on all sides. They said major publications often accurately portray most nuances of the issue. Smaller newspapers and some websites and blogs can miss important policy and technical nuances, leaving readers misinformed, generally agreed FCC, nonprofit and journalism officials at a panel Tuesday night sponsored by Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and the Society of Professional Journalists (http://bit.ly/1ng7uh8). The stakeholders included those from organizations backing reclassification of broadband as a Title II Communications Act service, those supporting rules that leave broadband as an information service and an opponent of any net neutrality rules.

The Justice Department isn’t the place for storing confidential documents on deals to carry programming on pay TV, said some cable-, satellite- and telco-TV interests that opposed broadcasters’ and cable channels’ requests for DOJ to keep the data (CD Sept 25 p6; Sept 23 p6). The FCC should host such documents and can keep them private, not DOJ where they would be only seen by commission officials and not other petitioners in FCC reviews of the two biggest media deals now pending, said multichannel video programming distributors. The Media Bureau last week sought comment on the pay-TV programmer and TV station data housing requests on AT&T’s planned purchase of DirecTV and Comcast’s plan to buy Time Warner Cable and divest some subscribers to Charter Communications (http://bit.ly/1sNsuhI). Hoping to get their deals approved, the combining companies didn’t oppose giving the documents to the FCC.

A TV station that won a rare FCC OK to move cross-country after a court ordered it to (CD Dec 17/12 p4) now wants to be what agency and industry officials said in interviews Monday would be a technological first for broadcasting. PMCM’s KVNV Middletown, New Jersey, wants to operate on the same main program and system information protocol (PSIP) channel as Meredith Corp.’s longtime WFSB Hartford, while each would have different virtual PSIP subchannels. Meredith opposed KVNV, which used to be licensed to Ely, Nevada, having the same PSIP as WFSB when the New Jersey station begins broadcasting from the new location. So, PMCM came up with an alternative idea that has never been presented before in the memories of TV station lawyers we spoke to or FCC officials.

The pay-TV industry faces a consumer perception problem amid its busiest period of consolidation, according to experts, executives and research. AT&T is seeking FCC and Justice Department approval to buy DirecTV in a deal worth about $67 billion (http://soc.att.com/1ofKgX0), and Comcast wants the OK to buy Time Warner Cable in a deal valued at about $66 billion (http://bit.ly/1pXn6kP). Some experts said those companies’ reputations might suffer further if the deals are completed. If the past is a guide, multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) -- the second-lowest-rated industry in American Customer Satisfaction Index consumer research behind only ISPs -- may suffer more as the buyers digest mergers and acquisitions, said ACSI and others.