FCC Inaction On Media Consolidation Continues On Anniversary Of Prometheus Ruling

Policy

from the sitting-on-your-hands dept

One year ago today, the Supreme Court handed down a decision in FCC v. Prometheus Radio Project. The decision provided a reset to a seventeen year long legal dispute over the FCC’s media ownership rules that had its inception in the Third Circuit in 2004.

In 1996, the Telecommunications Act included substantial revisions to the FCC’s ownership rules for broadcast stations. These changes led to a massive round of consolidation, especially in radio, giving rise to massive radio companies like Clear Channel and Cumulus.

Included in the Telecommunications Act was an ongoing requirement that the agency periodically review its ownership rules. This requirement was initially on a two-year (biennial) cycle that was later expanded to a four-year (quadrennial) review. As part of this mandate the FCC reviewed ownership in 1998 and in 2000 but took almost no action as the broadcast industry was still going through a substantial upheaval caused by rapid consolidation in radio.

Then, after conducting the 2002 Biennial review, the agency released a new set of ownership guidelines called the Diversity Index in 2003. Several legal challenges were filed to the FCC’s actions, and those challenges were consolidated into Prometheus Radio Project v. FCC, heard by the Third Circuit, which released its decision in June of 2004.

The decision, and the three that followed in 2011, 2016 and 2019, were harsh rebuttals of the FCC’s decision-making and represented a substantial set-back for the agency. The criticisms of the agency’s processes were focused on two major issues. First, the FCC did not, and would not, consider the effect of the rules changes on station ownership by minorities and women, and second, the FCC was unable (and largely unwilling) to generate empirical evidence that the changes the agency was trying to implement were having the desired effects.

I’ve discussed this sequence of events in research in the Federal Communications Law Journal here and here, as well as in the Hastings Communications and Entertainment Law Journal, and in a series of podcasts with the folks at Radio Survivor.

With just one day remaining in the Trump administration, and his chairmanship of the FCC, Ajit Pai’s agency and the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) argued in front of the Supreme Court that they should be freed from the ongoing (and still unanswered) remands from the 3^rd Circuit Court of Appeals. Release from the ongoing remand cycle was an important part of the petition made to the court, and to be fair, was argued for very eloquently by NAB Counsel Helgi Walker during oral arguments.

The decision, written by Justice Kavanaugh was narrow, but provided the relief that the industry and the FCC were seeking, primarily by focusing on the agency’s most recent action on media ownership from 2017 to the exclusion of the events of the other 13 years of the lengthy dispute. However, there was a lingering, and unresolved issue left on the table by the court’s opinion: Notably: how to handle the 2018 Quadrennial Review Process.

While the conflict over the FCC’s 2016 and 2017 decisions were pending in the Third Circuit, the agency launched, on the last possible day to do so, the 2018 Quadrennial Review, but functionally took no further action in the matter. Now, in early 2022, without a full Commission, the agency faces an unfinished review from 2018 and another review of its ownership rules mandated by the Telecommunications Act to be launched this year.

It bears mention, even as we celebrate another year without action by the agency… even in light of the Supreme Court’s decision, that the agency could have acted at multiple points itself to break the deadlock, but it chose not to. The agency did not complete the 2010 Quadrennial review, rolling it right into the 2014 review, and then not acting until ordered by the Third Circuit to do so in April of 2016.

Then, after releasing an order in response to the Third Circuit in August of 2016 that made no significant changes to the existing rules, in 2017 the agency, now led by Ajit Pai, issued a new set of ownership rules, based on the same administrative record, that fundamentally altered several of the existing regulations, and then even after a loss in court in 2019, decided to continue pursuing legal remedies rather than complete the open 2018 proceeding.

So, in the end, as the agency has squandered another year, we should remember that the FCC is doing so in a way that is basically a trifecta of policy failure. The Commission is making the broadcast industry miserable by not updating the rules, while not developing functional policies to promote diverse ownership by women and minorities. Then there’s that small detail where the existing rules are still allowing local stations to get swallowed up by conglomerates, often removing the important local aspects to their news and informational content and thus hurting local audiences. 

But hey, I mean, what’s another year between friends, right?

Christopher Terry is an assistant professor of media law in the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota and a research fellow for the Center for Quantum Networks.

Filed Under: broadcast industry, broadcasters, court ruling, fcc, media ownership, prometheus, radio, supreme court, tv

Telecom, Broadcasters Convince FCC To Explore New Taxes On 'Big Tech'

Policy

from the this-probably-won't-go-well dept

Earlier this year, we noted how FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr had launched a bad faith effort suggesting that “big tech” gets a “free ride” on the internet, and should be forced to fund broadband expansion. Carr’s argument, that companies like Google and Netflix somehow get a free ride (they don’t) and should “pay their fair share,” is a fifteen year old AT&T lobbyist talking point. AT&T’s goal has always been to “double dip”; as in not only get paid for bandwidth by consumers and businesses, but to get an additional troll toll simply for, well, existing.

AT&T has long tried to offload its (often neglected or half-completed) network build and maintenance costs to somebody else to make investors happy. That somebody else is usually taxpayers, who’ve thrown billions in pointless tax breaks and dubious regulatory favors at the company in exchange for fiber networks that are always (so mysteriously!) left half completed and jobs that never arrive. Now AT&T (and their broadcaster allies) want tech giants to pay as well.

Over at the right wing Washington Examiner, you can see how this effort is framed in order to sell it to the public and regulators:

“The Federal Communications Commission is looking to hit Big Tech companies with new regulatory fees related to their high use of broadband facilitated by the agency ? a sign of Washington’s growing skepticism of Silicon Valley wealth and power.”

You’re given no indication that this is a telecom (AT&T) or broadcasting (the National Association of Broadcasters) bad faith political play. Carr (read: AT&T’s policy folks) had originally suggested in a carefully seeded editorial that tech companies should be forced to pay into the Universal Service Fund, which helps fund broadband expansion to schools and low-income communities. Now, Carr’s argument has also been piggybacked onto by broadcasters, who want tech companies to pay a tax simply to use unlicensed spectrum (like Wi-Fi hardware). Fortunately, the Examiner at least includes experts who point out the idea is stupid:

“Unlicensed spectrum was first established by the commission in 1985, and allows the general public to freely use, without a license, services such as Wi-Fi networks, Bluetooth waves, garage door openers, and other wireless technologies.

?The FCC is asking the public if we think fees on unlicensed spectrum is a good idea or not,? said Harold Feld, a telecom policy expert and lawyer at the consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge. ?And I?m here to say it?s a bad idea. In the spirit of Halloween, I plan to take a chainsaw to it.”

So I think the FCC is considering this route because it’s true the USF needs more money if we’re going to help make sure low-income kids and schools have decent connectivity. The problem is that the FCC’s proposal is written in such a way that it sounds like you could potentially be seeing annoying new taxes on Wi-Fi networks, Bluetooth devices, garage door openers, and more. The other problem is the core motivation here is by telecom and broadcast companies who simply want to offload their costs to somebody else. If they’re the ones writing the proposal (and it sounds like they are), the end product isn’t going to be particularly balanced or productive.

But to me the bigger problem is that if we’re genuinely interested in shoring up broadband funding and expanding access, we should first be targeting the billions upon billions in tax breaks, regulator favors, merger approvals, and other perks we give to telecom and broadcast giants (in Comcast and AT&T’s case one in the same) in exchange for jack shit. The idea that we waste billions by throwing it mindlessly at regional monopolies seems like a good place to start if you’re serious about reform. But please take a moment to notice that this idea never gets mentioned by folks like Carr. That’s fairly telling.

Nothing gets fixed in U.S. broadband (especially affordability and access issues) without addressing regional monopolization and the state and federal corruption that protects it. But not only do we not do that, if you watch regulators and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, they can barely even candidly acknowledge it’s even a problem. As a baseline (and it has been the baseline for 30 straight years) that’s not a great recipe for success.

Filed Under: big tech, brendan carr, broadband, broadcasters, fcc, free ride, net neutrality, subsidies, taxes, telcos, universal service fund
Companies: at&t, facebook, google

Broadcasters Hope To Counter Ad Skipping By Replacing Ads With Short 'Inspirational Videos'

Too Much Free Time

from the that'll-work dept

The cable & broadcast industry has gone to some pretty absurd lengths to avoid having to adapt to the cord cutting era. As ad-skipping DVRs started to become popular, the industry’s response wasn’t to embrace natural evolution, it was to file a bunch of lawsuits and creatively harass companies that were trying to give consumers what they wanted. Similarly, as cord cutting has grown thanks to sky-high prices and ad break fatigue, the industry’s overall response was to first raise prices like it was going out of fashion, then try to speed up or edit down programs in the hopes of shoving more ads into each viewing hour.

None of these “solutions,” you’ll be shocked to learn, actually slowed down the sector’s evolution or the exodus of cable TV consumers to more flexible, less costly streaming alternatives. Alternatives that are, you’ll note, actually listening to users and giving them what they’re asking for (usually).

More recently, we’ve seen broadcast and cable executives begrudgingly admit that they can’t just keep doubling down on the same dumb ideas and expect a better outcome. As a result, we’ve seen some broadcasters experiment with lower advertising loads during prime time. And we’re also seeing to see the industry get a little more creative as to what modern advertising actually means, even if many of these offerings aren’t likely to solve the problem either.

For example, NBC has pondered bringing back the bygone era of product placement, something that can easily go wrong if handled poorly. Similarly, Fox outlets like Fox Broadcasting, FX, at the National Geographic channel announced this week that they’ll soon start experimenting with replacing ads with short “inspirational videos” funded by the pharmaceutical and insurance sectors:

“Starting this fall, Fox outlets like Fox Broadcasting, FX, Nat Geo and their digital counterparts will begin running inspirational videos that tell stories about people who have overcome adversity. These tales won?t take part over the course of 22 episodes, but will instead show up during advertising time, and Fox hopes to get marketers to sponsor them. Pharmaceutical companies, sports advertisers, insurance marketers and wellness firms are viewed as potential candidates that might consider attaching their names to vignettes of various lengths about people triumphing over cancer, the loss of a limb, or even blindness.”

Executives at Fox are calling these “inspirational vignettes” or “unbreakables,” in that they’re supposed to keep the viewer’s attention fixed to the screen:

“Fox is expected to unveil the idea for the inspirational vignettes, known as ?Unbreakables,? Monday at the Cannes Lions advertising festival in France. ?As part of our relentless pursuit of providing the best viewing experience and the highest performance for marketers, we are turning ad time into brand storytelling time,? says Michael Shields, senior vice president of sales strategy for Fox Networks Group, in a statement.”

Short stories funded by major corporations seeded between programming sound a lot like… advertisements. And while you have to credit the industry for actually trying something new, this will do nothing to thwart cord cutting if the content in question isn’t actually compelling. We’ve talked in the past about how good content is advertising and how good advertisements should be good content — but do you really think that what comes out of this will be good content?

A better option for the cable and broadcast sector is to finally acknowledge that the cash-cow cable TV days of yesteryear are gone, they’re not coming back, and that cable operators and broadcasters are going to have to actually try and compete now. That’s going to require competing on price, service flexibility and customer service (gasp) instead of just doubling down on bad behavior. Many cable and broadcaster execs have grown so pampered from years of cozy deals and muted, “wink wink” style non-price competition that they’re under the false impression that they have any real say in the matter.

But that’s how competition works. You don’t much have a choice in the matter, and you can either adapt your business model to the new paradigm, or you can slowly but surely become an outdated relic surpassed by more nimble, flexible companies that actually provide what the customers want. Better ads are certainly part of that equation, but they’re only a small portion of what’s wrong with the traditional cable TV model.

Filed Under: ad skipping, advertisements, advertising is content, broadcasters, content is advertising, cord cutting, inspirational videos
Companies: fox, nbc

Those Annoying Cable Channel Blackouts Are Only Going To Get Worse In 2018

Predictions

from the more-money-for-the-same-substandard-service dept

The last few years, cable TV customers have faced a growing number of obnoxious carriage fee blackouts, which occur when broadcasters and cable operators can’t agree on new programming contracts. Such feuds usually go something like this: a broadcaster will demand a fairly obnoxious price hike for the same content, to which the cable provider (already awash in complaints about higher rates) will balk. Instead of negotiating their differences like adults, this content is subsequently blacked out for paying customers to force a settlement. Customers never see refunds for the inconvenience of being used as props.

For weeks, consumers are bombarded with PR missives, new websites and on-screen tickers all trying to amplify public outrage and drive greater pressure for one side or the other to buckle. After a while, the two sides strike a new confidential deal, and the higher rates are then quickly passed on to consumers. In a letter to lawmakers last year, Dish Network argued that consumers have faced 750 such broadcaster blackouts since 2010, with the retransmission consent fees that broadcasters demand growing a whopping 27,400% between 2005 and 2016.

It’s an idiotic cycle of dysfunction that’s unsustainable and only acts to drive consumers to alternative video options (like piracy). The fact that these costs are only driving users away from the traditional pay TV ecosystem is irrelevant to many cable and broadcast executives, who seem inclined to believe that they’ll be able to nurse this dying cash cow in perpetuity.

The annoying phenomenon shows no sign of slowing down in 2018. Frontier customers in Seattle this week lost access to CBS after the company says it was told it needed to pay 80% more money for the same exact content:

“Cox?s bullying and heavy-handed blackout tactics hurt consumers,? said Steve Ward, Frontier Senior Vice President Video Technology and Content. “Their demands for an outrageous price increase would have to be passed on to customers in the form of higher monthly service rates. It?s time for Cox to agree to a fair and reasonable solution.”

Meanwhile, Suddenlink and Optimum (formerly Cablevision) customers woke up to the new year with the news that they’d no longer be able to access Starz after their cable provider and the broadcaster failed to strike a new deal. For now, customers of those cable providers are being told that if they want access to Starz content, they’ll need to pay extra to access it via Starz online streaming platform:

“Given that Starz is available to all consumers directly through Starz’ own over-the-top streaming service, we don’t believe it makes sense to charge all of our customers for Starz programming, particularly when their viewership is declining and the majority of our customers don’t watch Starz,” Altice said in its statement. “We believe it is in the best interest of all our customers to replace Starz and StarzEncore programming with alternative entertainment channels that will provide a robust content experience at a great value.”

Of course with regulatory capture and the death of net neutrality, it’s likely that this is one of several problems in the telecom and cable world that will only get worse before it gets better. Regulators from both parties were already inclined to dismiss this problem as just “boys being boys,” wary of getting involved in what they believe are simple business disputes. And while there have been occasional talks about banning these blackouts as an act of bad-faith negotiations, nothing much ever appears to come of them. The hope was that the threat of regulatory intervention would be enough.

And while it’s certainly true that this behavior will only drive customers to new streaming alternatives, broadcasters still dictate licensing for (or outright own) those services as well, meaning it’s only a matter of time before this problem expands to hamper access to online content. There have been several different times where broadcasters blocked user access to their online services as well (usually by ISP IP range); behavior that only ceased due to companies being worried that they might run afoul of net neutrality (since many ISPs are broadcasters, like Comcast) or adult regulatory supervision.

With both of those concepts on the chopping block, expect carriage fee bickering (and the subsequent blackouts) to get both worse and more sophisticated in the new year.

Filed Under: blackouts, broadcasters, cable, competition, tv

Utterly Tone Deaf To Cord Cutting, Cable Contract Feuds And Blackouts Skyrocket

Failures

from the utterly-unsustainable dept

We’ve noted for years that as broadcasters and cable companies bicker over new programming contracts, already-annoyed customers are left in a lurch. Usually these feuds go something like this: a broadcaster demands a huge rate increase for the exact same content. The cable company balks, and the content is usually pulled out of the cable lineup. Customers aren’t given any sort of refund for this missing content, they’re just inundated with PR pitches from both sides trying to get them pissed at the other guy. Ultimately a new, confidential contract is struck, and the rate hikes are then passed on to the consumer.

In short, consumers are repeatedly punished with blackouts and petty PR bitching between companies incapable of responsibly signing new contracts, after which they get a lovely new price hike. It’s no wonder that 2016 was a record year for cord cutting.

Utterly oblivious to the self-immolation that comes from pissing off an already historically unsatisfied customer base, cable providers and broadcasters are already doubling down on this dysfunction in 2017. In just the last few weeks, countless pay TV customers have lost access to content they’re paying for, whether it’s Bonneville International blocking Dish customer access to a local NBC affiliate in large parts of Idaho, DirecTV users temporarily losing access to 33 Hearst Stations, or Frontier customers losing access to Sinclair Broadcasting stations after the broadcaster demanded a 200% price hike.

The American Television Alliance, a coalition of mostly cable companies, was quick to point out that 2017 is on record to see more of these types of feuds than ever before, as broadcasters continue to push for rate hikes that neither consumers nor cable companies are willing to pay for. It’s an utterly unsustainable business model to be sure, though the Alliance is quick to lay the lion’s share of the blame, quite correctly, at the feet of broadcasters:

“Broadcasters ambushed innocent consumers on New Year?s Day with a tidal wave of television blackouts,” said American Television Alliance national spokesman Trent Duffy. “Broadcast tycoons have brazenly and deliberately hijacked pay TV viewers once again, holding college football bowl games, the last weekend of the NFL?s regular season and network premiers for ransom in a naked ploy to extract more money from consumers.”

Of course, cable providers aren’t innocent little daisies either. While they may be a prisoner to broadcaster rates, they often impose rate hikes on service at every conceivable opportunity as well, whether it’s higher fees to rent a cable box or digital signal converter, fees to pay your bill in person or via the phone, hidden obnoxious fees used to falsely advertise a lower price, or broadband usage caps and overage fees designed to seek out their pound of flesh from another area of the consumer wallet.

Again, this simply isn’t sustainable. If the cable industry wants to seriously fight back against cord cutting and slimmer streaming alternatives, it needs to begin more seriously competing on channel bundle flexibility and price, something the sector as a whole appears to be incapable of realizing. As such, cord cutting and cord trimming (streamlining your cable package) are self-inflicted wounds from an industry so terrified of killing its precious legacy TV cash cow, it’s actually accelerating the demise of its traditional customer base by doubling down on pissing them off.

Filed Under: blackouts, broadcasters, cable, contracts, cord cutting

Appeals Court Tosses Lawsuit Against Broadcasters For Violating Publicity Rights During Football Game Broadcasts

Legal Issues

from the legal-fantasies-are-the-worst-fantasies dept

Javon Marshall — a former college athlete spearheading a putative class action against several broadcasters for uncompensated use of his likeness — has just seen the Sixth Circuit Appeals Court send him (and everyone “similarly situated”) back home without a parting gift.

Marshall — like many others who believe the mere existence of intellectual property protections entitles them to a paycheck — sued a long list of broadcasters for allegedly violating the Lanham Act and the Tennessee “right of publicity” law by not paying him and other athletes for using his name and “image” in game broadcasts and advertising. Marshall also claimed the NCAA’s waiver student-athletes sign is “vague and unenforceable.” That may very well be, but that claim was never addressed by the plaintiff and the NCAA was never a defendant. It only served as an introduction to a long list of alleged violations [PDF] that the lower court determined to be baseless accusations.

The Appeals Court makes short work [PDF] of Marshall’s attempt to have the lawsuit revived, pointing out in a wonderful opening paragraph just how unrealisitic his claims are. The first sentence alone indicates how far from legal reality Marshall’s class action lawsuit strayed.

To state the plaintiffs’ theory in this case is nearly to refute it.

Going on, the court punches a dramatic hole in Marshall’s flawed logic.

The theory begins with the assertion that college football and basketball players have a property interest in their names and images as they appear in television broadcasts of games in which the players are participants. Thus, the plaintiffs conclude, those broadcasts are illegal unless licensed by every player on each team. Whether referees, assistant coaches, and perhaps even spectators have the same rights as putative licensors is unclear from the plaintiffs’ briefs (and, by all appearances, to the plaintiffs themselves).

Very briefly addressing the plaintiff’s arguments, the court waves them away in two sentences, offering its wholehearted support of the lower court’s decision.

In any event, the plaintiffs seek to assert claims under Tennessee law, the Sherman Act, and the Lanham Act on behalf of a putative class of collegiate players nationwide. The defendants—various college athletic conferences and television networks, among others—responded in the district court with a motion to dismiss, which the court granted in a notably sound and thorough opinion.

The court goes on to call the plantiffs’ claims under Tennessee law “legal fantasy,” pointing out that the state’s “right of publicity” specifically exempts sports broadcasts. The plaintiffs’ common-law claim asserts a right never granted by the state. The Sherman Act antitrust claim fails because if a right doesn’t exist, it can’t be licensed in a noncompetitive fashion. The court saves its best comment for Marshall’s trademark claim.

That leaves the plaintiffs’ claim under the Lanham Act, whose relevant provision bars the unauthorized use of a person’s name or likeness in commerce when doing so “is likely to cause confusion” as to whether the person endorses a product. 15 U.S.C. § 1125(a)(1)(A). The theory here is that if, say, ESPN shows a banner for “Tostitos” at the bottom of the screen during a football game, then consumers might become confused as to whether all the players on the screen endorse Tostitos. Suffice it to say that ordinary consumers have more sense than the theory itself does.

This futile lawsuit was perhaps encouraged by the relative success of a similar lawsuit against Electronic Arts for using the “likenesses” of players in its sports videogames. However, there’s a crucial difference that factored into the Ninth Circuit Appeals Court’s decision on behalf of the players: California’s oft-abused “right of publicity” law which doesn’t contain the same exemptions as Tennessee’s. And in that case, there’s still hope of a rehearing which might tilt the court towards finding California’s law must defer to the First Amendment, rather than the other way around.

Filed Under: broadcasters, broadcasts, football, javon marshall, publicity rights, sports

Broadcasters Working Hard To Cripple Dish's Consumer Friendly Sling TV

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the get-the-hell-out-of-the-way dept

You might recall that two years ago just around this time Dish technically won the CNET best of CES award for its Hopper auto-ad-skipping DVR technology, but CNET owner CBS trampled its own editorial policies by not only telling CNET to pull the award from Dish, but also banning CNET from writing reviews about the product. The excuse CBS gave was that CBS and Dish were involved in ongoing litigation over whether ad-skipping violated copyright, though of course the real reason was that CBS simply didn’t want Dish’s consumer-friendly product getting any more media attention than was absolutely necessary.

After the rather ridiculous fiasco, CNET reporters resigned and CEA took the “best of CES” honors away from CNET and gave them to Engadget. Fast forward a few years and Engadget has brought things full circle, this year awarding Dish’s new $20 Sling TV service with the best home theater product award, best software/app award, and best of CES overall award. With perhaps an extra dash of hyperbole, Engadget declares Sling TV to be the beginning of the end for traditional television:

“Many of us have been waiting, hoping and even lusting after Sling TV before we’d ever heard of it: an internet TV service that gives you the channels you love, on any screen, anywhere, without a subscription to traditional cable or satellite TV service. Our long wait finally, blessedly ended at CES 2015. Sling (don’t call it Dish) TV is a big deal, folks. It could very well be the beginning of the end for traditional pay TV here in the US, and that’s not something I ever thought possible before this week. That, friends, is why Sling TV is taking home three Best of CES awards, including Best in Show.”

That’s probably overdoing it. While we noted that the service is a big deal because it finally breaks ESPN out of the traditional cable bundle, the lack of live broadcaster channels (for now), the inability to record programs, and the scattershot content catalog don’t quite make this a cable TV killer yet — though it’s at least a step in the right direction (2015 looks to be the year streaming video finally leaves the cradle). Of course, like Dish’s Hopper DVR, Sling TV very nearly didn’t exist, and it came only after Dish was willing to give more than its pound of flesh to change-averse broadcasters.

Dish had to promise ABC that it would disable ad-skipping for some ABC content on Hopper to secure licensing rights. CBS (busy cooking up a $7 a month streaming service of its own) then proceeded to make it clear Dish would have to jump through even more hoops if it wanted similar deals (which haven’t been struck yet). Apparently Dish’s contract language with broadcasters also includes a clause whereby the satellite provider has to stop advertising the service if it reaches five million viewers, since you certainly wouldn’t want a streaming television offering to get too popular and disrupt the cozy cable and broadcast status quo.

And those are only the contract restrictions we know of. Again, ad skipping and streaming TV aren’t really all that innovative anymore — but they are in an industry that fights tooth and nail against a litany of common-sense things consumers want (greater freedom in channel selection, fewer ads, prices that don’t skyrocket at four times the rate of inflation). And Dish’s uphill fight likely isn’t over yet; should the service see any kind of traction you can be sure the cable companies and ISP will come crawling out of the woodwork, demanding the same kind of interconnection deals they struck with Netflix should Dish want its traffic to continue flowing unhindered.

So forget about the best of CES award, we really should be doling out an annual “I ran the gauntlet of protectionist legacy jackasses and still managed to somehow release a consumer-friendly product” award.

Filed Under: broadcasters, cord cutting, limits, sling tv
Companies: abc, cbs, dish

Update On Ten-Year Campaign To Give Copyright Industry Another Monopoly: WIPO's Broadcasting Treaty

Copyright

from the too-much-is-never-enough dept

Say what you will about the copyright industry, but it certainly doesn’t give up. No matter how many times a bad idea is fought off, sooner or later, it comes back again. The best example of this is probably WIPO’s Broadcasting Treaty, which Techdirt has been covereing for a decade: in 2004, 2005, 2008, 2011 and 2013. This campaign to give broadcasters yet more monopoly rights — as if they didn’t have enough already — is still underway, and the EFF provides us with a timely update on the current state of play:

Here’s why that would be awful from many viewpoints:

And that’s not all:

As this shows, while pushing for new bad ideas, the copyright industry is always happy to re-use some of its old bad ideas — even more reason to fight the WIPO Broadcasting Treaty yet again.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: broadcast treaty, broadcasters, broadcasting treaty, monopolies, wipo

Broadcasters And Cable Companies Trying Harder Than Ever To Annoy Paying Customers With Ugly Public Contract Disputes

Culture

from the everybody-loses dept

We’ve already noted how the retransmission fee disputes between cable companies and broadcasters have grown significantly more annoying over the last few years, as broadcasters seek out higher and higher rates to prop up the unsustainable current TV ecosystem. These fights have become a master class in how to piss off your (already quite annoyed) customer base during rate negotiations, with paying TV customers being bombarded with ads, TV tickers, and a bevy of lame websites by both sides trying to direct consumer outrage toward the other guy. Customers who happen to get broadband from a TV company engaged in one of these fights have also recently started to enjoy having access to online content blocked, even if they subscribe to TV services through another operator.

While broadcasters (especially sports programmers) own the lion’s share of the blame for the soaring rates, neither side is blameless. Cable operators will blame broadcasters with one breath, and in the very next hit consumers with their own assortment of higher cable modem rental fees, more expensive DVR and set top rental charges, or strange and obnoxious new below the line fees. Once both sides spend a few months publicly sniping at one another and bombarding consumers with artificial concern for soaring prices, they’ll strike a confidential agreement and quite happily raise consumer rates in unison. Cable TV customers get to pay for the honor of the entire experience.

AMC has recently ramped up their use of this tactic, blasting consumers with tickers and ads not only after contract negotiations break down, but months before current contracts expire. AMC repeatedly warned viewers of the latest “The Walking Dead” episode that DirecTV wasn’t bowing quite deeply enough during efforts to renew a contract expiring at year’s end, and therefore consumers might lose access to their favorite content:

During the Nov. 2 premiere episode of The Walking Dead, AMC began alerting DirecTV subscribers via commercials and graphic snipes that their ability to watch cable’s top series, and TV’s leader among persons 18 to 49, could be compromised…”DirecTV has not engaged in meaningful negotiations with us, which leaves us to doubt whether a timely renewal is possible,” (a statement declares).

Because bothering you at home during your favorite shows isn’t enough, Viacom recently got the great idea to take their feud with small cable operator Suddenlink on the road, hiring actors dressed up as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to help educate kids and parents during a Charleston-area homecoming celebration:

Viacom has enlisted Nickelodeon?s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to help reunite Suddenlink customers with some of the characters they might be missing since losing access to Viacom channels in early October. The turtles were scheduled to make an appearance at Capital High School?s homecoming game Friday night at University of Charleston Stadium. The move, Viacom spokesman Mark Jafar said, is intended to let area customers know the company is still thinking of them.

Because nothing quite says, “I’m thinking about you,” like costumed turtles trying to offload blame for your own obnoxious prices hikes, right?

Of course this attempt to generate consumer outrage on the part of broadcasters only works if consumers actually miss your content, something that’s only going to happen less as alternatives to cable expand. When DirecTV customers recently lost access to The Weather Channel during a contract dispute, it turned out that customers really didn’t miss the channel all that much because the channel’s quality had eroded substantially and many users had already shifted to getting their weather online. It’s also worth noting that some small and mid-sized cable operators, unable to afford these endless rate hikess, are no longer offering cable TV and simply selling broadband.

Cable company executives spend a lot of time publicly wondering why younger cord cutters can’t seem to see the incredible value in traditional cable television, oblivious to the fact that annoying paying customers goes a long way to explaining it. These are the same companies and executives who in a few years will stare dumbly at their shoes wondering how they failed to keep pace with evolution in Internet-based television, and these increasingly annoying and loud contract disputes are the last, sad gasps of a dying dinosaur.

Filed Under: broadcasters, cable, customers, fights, networks, retransmission, tv, walking dead
Companies: amc, viacom