May 2013

The Consumer Electronics Association asked the full Federal Communications Commission to reconsider the Media Bureau's grant of a conditional waiver to Charter for set-tops with downloadable security.

The FCC in 2007 instituted the prohibition on set-tops that combine channel surfing with security. Cable ops were required to use a removable CableCARD security add-on, a move the FCC hoped would goose the retail market, though it conceded at the time that a downloadable software security option would be preferable to the hardware in the long run. It has since conceded that the ban has not spurred that retail market. The bureau in March granted the two-year waiver with a number of conditions, but ones CEA suggests are too aspirational to be effective. In a petition to the FCC filed May 20, the deadline for the challenge, CEA asked the full commission to review and, preferably, rescind, the waiver. CEA said the bureau lacks the authority to relax the regulations. It also argues that the waiver "establishes a basis for Charter and other operators to assert to the Commission and to a reviewing court that any nominally “downloadable” security system" will do. That, CEA suggests, could severely undercut the FCC's goal of "the commercial availability of navigation devices from manufacturers and vendors not affiliated with cable operators

Intel is a $53-billion-a-year company that enjoys a near monopoly on the computer chips that go into PCs. But when it comes to the data underlying big companies like Facebook and Google, it says it wants to “return power to the people.”

Intel Labs, the company’s R&D arm, is launching an initiative around what it calls the “data economy”—how consumers might capture more of the value of their personal information, like digital records of their location or work history. To make this possible, Intel is funding hackathons to urge developers to explore novel uses of personal data. It has also paid for a rebellious-sounding website called We the Data, featuring raised fists and stories comparing Facebook to Exxon Mobil. Intel’s effort to stir a debate around “your data” is just one example of how some companies—and society more broadly—are grappling with a basic economic asymmetry of the big data age: they’ve got the data, and we don’t.

[Commentary] The reasons a la carte cable pricing was roundly rejected by Congress years ago are just as relevant today: such rules would decimate the economic model that has encouraged ever-increasing diversity of viewpoints on television and has made possible even the modest increase in minority ownership of programming.

On the surface, a la carte seems appealing. Certainly greater consumer influence over programming has merit. Nonetheless, the few diverse, independent channels that have managed to survive must be preserved, and new independent channels must not face insurmountable barriers to entry. Unintentionally, a la carte would be the death knell for program diversity. To understand why, think of multichannel cable as a video library. In a traditional library, natural curiosity motivates visitors to browse the shelves and check out books they’d never heard about. In the same way, cable channel surfing allows viewers to encounter and enjoy programming they’d never choose if the government had forced them to order cable “a la carte.” If traditional libraries operated a la carte, they’d only need drive-up windows. Readers could order books they’d already heard about – one book at a time. Far fewer books would be written and published, and most books would be mass appeal titles. Our intellectual and cultural life would lose much of its vibrancy and depth. Similarly, under cable a la carte, new channels featuring gospel music, international culture, or African American movies would never get off the ground. Without the daily exposure that comes with channel surfing, it would take these new channels decades to attract the millions of loyal viewers a channel needs to recoup the costs of producing high quality programming for a national audience.

It's a long time coming, but television content is showing up on non-TV screens like never before, and people are willing to pay for it. Whatever will become of cable? For one, experts say, cable companies may finally be forced to kill their sacred cash cow: bundled channels. The battle lines are drawn.