John A. Craft - Part 2

What just happened?

May 25th, 2010 14:22 UTC ·

A bipartisan group of politicians on Monday told FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, in no uncertain terms, to abandon his plans to impose controversial new rules on broadband providers until the U.S. Congress changes the law.

Seventy-four House Democrats sent Genachowski, an Obama appointee and fellow Democrat, a letter saying his ideas will “jeopardize jobs” and “should not be done without additional direction from Congress.”

A separate letter from 37 Senate Republicans, also sent Monday, was more pointed. It accused Genachowski of pushing “heavy-handed 19th century regulations” that are “inconceivable” as well as illegal.

Bloomberg:

Democrats in the U.S. House and Senate said they will consider proposals starting next month to update the law that has regulated telephone, cable and broadcast companies for the past 14 years.

The lawmakers will begin “a process to develop proposals” to revise the 1934 Communications Act, which was last rewritten by Congress in 1996, leaders of two committees said today in an e-mailed statement. Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, chairman of the Commerce Committee, and Representative Henry Waxman of California, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, are starting the process, according to the statement.

That’s a pretty significant reversal. The May 6th announcement was well-choreographed – the legal argument was put out in an effort to frame the debate, and the relevant committee chairs provided cover. Now those same committee chairs are ready to act legislatively.

Perhaps we’ll actually get a revised Communications Act that addresses the current environment.

May 20th, 2010 13:37 UTC ·

In my last post, I made the following comment:

the cable industry is facing a big change. Cable’s current business model looks a lot like broadcast – it’s based on channels, and many content providers pay for their channel. But its future business model is on-demand, and looks a lot like . . . Bittorrent.

TiVo and Comcast’s ‘On Demand’ service are the obvious examples of non-channel TV. NetFlix can stream to your DVD player. Hulu is an example of non-channel programming that’s not available on TV, but could be.

For obvious reasons, most TV watchers would probably prefer a world in which they can watch the News Hour at 7:30pm instead of 6:00pm if they want to -- and they can, just not on their TV, unless they have a DVR. My basic-cable package has over 100 channels, but I only watch a few. In a world where I can have a DVR or On Demand, a delivery mechanism that mimics rationing the public airwaves is increasingly anachronistic.

Today, we have a new entrant in the set-top box competition: Google.

If I can get my “Daily Show” fix from Google over my Comcast internet, Comcast’s channel structure is less valuable to me, and I may drop my cable package. Comcast in turn loses (a) ad revenue, (b) my monthly subscription fee, and (c) per-subscriber revenue that some content provider pay to be on Comcast. Expect ‘On Demand’ to evolve to meet the challenge.

This is going to get interesting.

jac

"Pete, it's a fool that looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart." – U. E. McGill

What just happened?

May 25th, 2010 14:22 UTC ·

Channel-Free TV

May 20th, 2010 13:37 UTC ·

John @

Interesting

Inner child stuff