Public Knowledge Tells FCC It Must Prevent Harm To Future Programming Competition

Fox's decision to cut off access to its online programming to Cablevision subscribers shows that "the current generation of dominant content and content delivery networks are trying to control the next," Public Knowledge told the Federal Communications Commission.

The incident shows that programmers "are willing and able to limit their online content only to ISPs (Internet Service Providers) who are willing to 'pay to play,'" PK said, citing cases of NBC blocking Olympics coverage, the "TV Everywhere" scheme and Hulu blocking of Boxee, Kylo and Google TV." While these types of actions are not "network neutrality" as precisely understood because they were conduct inflicted on an ISP rather than by an ISP, the actions "could threaten the integrity of the open Internet as much as anti-competitive behavior by telecommunications providers. Accordingly, incidents such as these should be investigated by the FCC, FTC, Justice Department, or other agencies, according to their jurisdiction," PK said.

PK said that the FCC must address the issue on two levels. One level is the Comcast purchase of NBC, which could generate "more, and more damaging, retransmission consent and online video disputes." On a second, broader level, PK said the FCC has to "address the overall problem of media consolidation that allows a single commercial dispute between two companies to deprive millions of consumers of programming and impacts the evolution of the open Internet ecosystem." The FCC has allowed consolidation in programming, broadband and video-distribution markets on the theory that the Internet would provide competition to existing systems.