By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 11-15-19
Republican FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly said that the FCC’s outstanding proposal to classify over-the-top (OTT) platforms as MVPDs is the sort of “zombie” proceeding the FCC should finally kill off.
O’Rielly made that proposal in a speech to the Massachusetts Broadcasters Association Thursday (Nov. 14).
The FCC recently concluded that an OTT services are sufficiently MPVD-like to conclude that telco-provided OTT AT&T TV Now, and by extension any similar OTT, is effectively a multichannel video competitor to cable in local markets. But that is different from a years-old (2014) proposal by then-FCC chair Tom Wheeler that OTTs be defined as MVPDs for the purposes of program access and carriage rules. » Read More