AT&T: ‘We support multicast must-carry’
June 14th, 2006AT&T supports rules that would give cable channel slots to local digital TV multicast services, according to a senior executive:
“We’re more than happy to put this programming on our network,” Robert Quinn, senior vice president for federal regulatory affairs at AT&T, said in a telephone interview. “We support multicast must-carry.”
Quinn’s remarks in a Reuters interview on Tuesday would appear to contradict an FCC filing from the company last week, reported in Multichannel News:
“It is AT&T’s belief that decisions affecting carriage of programming offered by local commercial broadcast stations should be subject to commercial discussions between content owners and video providers,” the company said in a June 9 Federal Communications Commission filing…
AT&T maintains that rules governing cable TV do not apply to its new IPTV video service. Both stories say AT&T is negotiating with broadcasters to carry multicasts.
• Links: Reuters, Multichannel News