FCC chair would consider multicast carriage
April 25th, 2006Cable carriage of local digital TV multicast channels is the second controversy broached by FCC chairman Kevin Martin in his NAB appearance today.
Martin would be willing to consider requiring cable operators to give channel slots to multicasts “if a majority was willing to look at that.” The commission is equally divided along party lines currently, pending approval of another Republican appointed by President Bush. Both Democrats have opposed multicast carriage. Bush plans to keep Martin on the commission for another five-year term, Drew Clark reported today, and to keep him in the chairman’s seat.
For broadcasters, a decision to give each local station up to five or six channels on a cable television system would be like money raining down from the sky. But Todd Chanko of Jupiter Research smells greed, it seems:
Demanding both digital [multicast] must-carry and retrans payments from the MSOs is a dangerous game of chicken. Broadcasters ought to soft-pedal the entire retrans issue—after all, without cable carriage they’d have no audience against which to sell advertising.
That’s largely true. Recent announcements of plans for a range of original programming for multicast services would suggest an expectation among some players that broadcasters may win at least partial cable carriage for multicasting (say, two or three channels apiece). Now is the season when broadcasters are making demands, but the name of the game is negotiation. Sometime before 2009, we will find out what they will settle for.
• Links: Chanko, National Journal’s Insider Update