Written by: Roshan Dwivedi
The FCC has proposed to redefine OTT video services providers that offered regularly scheduled programming like MVPDs, putting them in the same regulatory category as cable TV and satellite television services. This will lead to a number of obligations on OTTs, including mandatory closed captioning, restrictions on the loudness of commercials and requirements that set-top boxes be offered for sale in retail stores.
FCC has also given them the bait. That Internet TV services as MVPDs could force existing broadcast TV stations to negotiate agreements to re-transmit their programming. According to them, this shift is needed to assist OTTs that have been having difficulty acquiring the programming content they wanted.
Let us be clear on this, the competition in TV service, both among OTTs as well as between them and more traditional forms of television is healthy. While individual failures do occur, as they happen in any healthy market, choices for consumers are still growing, with new programming launched frequently.
The FCC intervention is the least needed thing for this market for sure.
Source : Daily Signal
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