US: FCC’s Wheeler tells cable industry to cooperate

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said that the TV business was at a “make or break” point, characterizing the agency’s recent regulatory moves as an effort to ensure competition to the benefit of consumers while some established players seek to maintain the status quo.

“We are at a make or break point where there is a choice,” Wheeler said on Wednesday at INTX, formerly known as the Cable Show. “Are you going to say ‘No,’ and do everything possible [to prevent change], or are you going to say, ‘How are we going to make this work for consumers first?’”

Wheeler’s remarks at the annual event held by the National Cable and Telecommunications Association come as he has proposed “opening up” the cable set-top box, in which source codes would be made available on an open platform so manufactures could make and sell rival devices.

The proposal is bitterly opposed by the NCTA, as well as Hollywood studios and some guilds, like SAG AFTRA, who warn of its impact on the protection of copyright. NCTA President and CEO Michael Powell, himself a former FCC chairman, on Monday blasted the FCC’s actions, accusing the agency of a “relentless government assault” on the industry.

But in a Q&A session with C-SPAN’s Peter Slen, Wheeler said that the “job of government is to promote competition and let consumers enjoy the benefits of that, with the understanding that those who are incumbents never like change.”

Wheeler noted that he led the cable trade association in the 1970s and 80s, when the pay TV industry “was the voice of innovation and competition.”

Full Content: Variety

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