House Democrats Differ with Martin on Multicast Must-Carry

11 Legislators Write FCC Chairman to Complain About Statement During Hill Hearing

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 11/26/2007 10:55:00 AM

Almost one-dozen House Democrats wrote Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin to take issue with his statement at an Oct. 17 Hill hearing that imposing digital-multicast must-carry obligations on cable was "the most important thing we can do" for the digital-TV transition.

Saying that they were "dismayed" by the statement and "strongly disagreed" with it, they also said adding that carriage requirement would lead to "confusion, uncertainty and the potential for litigation."

The 11 legislators -- which included Anna Eshoo of California, Jay Inslee of Washington and Albert Wynn of Maryland -- said the FCC should not try to adopt a policy it has twice rejected, particularly given that it has already established "rules of the road" for cable digital carriage in a recent decision on cable's carriage of a viewable TV-station signal after the transition.

Instead, they said, the FCC should focus on coordinating with the National Telecommunications & Information Administration, which is overseeing the DTV converter-box-subsidy program, to make sure viewers are educated about the DTV transition in February 2009.

Talkback

We would love your feedback!

Post a comment

» View All Talkback Threads

Related Content

• Topics
• Author
• Most Popular Pages

House Democrats Outline DTV Actions for FCC

09/25/2008

FCC's New DTV Rules Allow for Some TV Disruption

01/02/2008

FCC Details Wilmington Hotline Calls

09/10/2008

House Approves NTIA, FCC Funding

09/24/2008

Klobuchar Warns of DTV ‘Cliff Effect’

09/12/2008

Also by this author

• DISH Avoids STELA Noncom Mandate

• Boucher, Stearns Introduce Voluntary Spectrum Auction Bill

• FCC Proposes Sticking With Outdoor Antenna Standard For Distant Signals

• FCC Extends Comcast/NBCU Comment Period

• MMTC To FCC: Save Our Quality of Service

Also by John Eggerton

Most Popular Pages

No Top Articles

Product Wire

• Resource Center
• Browse Categories
• Browse Companies

Featured Company

• Parks Associates

  

  Parks Associates is an internationally recognized market research and consulting company specializing in emerging consumer technology products and services. Founded in 1986, Parks Associates creates research capital for companies ranging from Fortune 500 to small start-ups throug..more

---

Most Recent Resources

• Multi Format Encoding for Efficient Content Repurposing
• The CIOs Guide to Videoconferencing Security Keeping Pace with th..
• Extracting and Preparing Metadata to Make Video Files Searchable
• Robust Encoding, Transcoding and Streaming Systems – Critical B..
• Simultaneous Multi-Format Encoding for Efficient Content Repurpos..