Under pressure from various groups and legislators, including a petition filed by diversity groups, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is letting stakeholders communicate with FCC staffers about the new set-top box proposal being vetted by commissioners.

Wheeler had kept the item under sunshine rule prohibitions on outside contacts with FCC decisionmakers until further notice even after it was pulled from the agenda for a public vote and the FCC's Sept. 29 meeting.

The FCC provided that further notice last Thursday (Oct. 6), saying that the restrictions had been lifted.

That was not sufficient for the Future of TV Coalition, which continued to call for publication of the item and a further comment period so that stakeholders can vet it to know what they should be commenting on.

“Lifting the ‘sunshine’ prohibitions is meaningless if the public isn’t even allowed to know the details of the plan," the group said in a statement. "This isn’t just some ‘inside the beltway’ fight – it’s a question of whether the real-world risks to consumers and creators are going to be addressed or just swept under the rug."

In pulling the item from the docket, Wheeler had pointed to last-minute changes and edits that commissioners needed more time to go over.

"“Does the new proposal continue to involve the FCC in setting licensing terms, in violation of copyright law? Does it still require TV providers to turn over sensitive viewer data to tech companies that aren’t covered by the strong privacy protections in the Communications Act? Does it finally abandon one-size-fits-all government technology mandates that are certain to slow down the unprecedented pace of innovation in the video marketplace?," asked the coalition.

"The FCC must comply with the purpose and goals of the Administrative Procedures Act and publicly release the details of the new proposal it intends to impose on the public. A notice given months ago on a completely different proposal simply isn’t enough. It’s time to let the sunshine in.”

The coalition includes major cable and satellite operators individually and NCTA: The Internet & Television Association.

“Any rulemaking process must incorporate the concerns of stakeholders. But until stakeholders have the opportunity to read the text of the proposed rule, we cannot have a fully informed conversation,” said Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.). Clark, a leader in the Congressional Black Caucus, has also been a leading voice for transparency on the item.

Randolph May, president of the Free State Foundation, agreed that more sunshine was needed in the form of pulbishing the text of the new proposal.

“As someone with an extensive administrative law background, including serving as Chair of the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice and a member of the Administrative Conference of the United States, I’m pretty confident that if Chairman Wheeler and his colleagues don’t put the revised proposal out for public comment, this will become a textbook case in the lengths a federal agency will go to avoid transparency," said May. "I understand ex parte submissions will be filed that hint at this or that change in the FCC’s evolving proposal. But in this case, there is no doubt that there have been enough meaningful changes in the proposal that the public, not just the insiders, deserve an opportunity to review the latest proposal comment on it.”

The Future of TV Coalition, which includes ISPs and others critical of the FCC's set-top box proposal, fired back Wednesday (May 18) after Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) called on her congressional colleagues to back the FCC against cable ops she said were trying to protect their set-top monopoly.

The coalition circulated a link to its own myths and realities list about the issue, countering Eshoo's "facts and fictions" list backing her side, which she included in a Dear Colleague letter.

“This debate isn’t about whether consumers should have alternatives to leased set-top boxes," said the coalition in a statement on that letter. "All sides agree they should, and this is already happening in the market today.  This debate is really about the best way to advance that innovation even further while respecting the copyright, licensing, diversity, and privacy characteristics of the TV ecosystem.

"A vast and diverse coalition of music, film, and TV creators, networks and programmers, TV distributors, the labor and business communities, dozens of civil rights groups, a host of economists and policy experts, and more than 150 Members of Congress have raised concerns about the scope and impact of the Chairman’s proposed mandate," the coalition added.

Read More:Complete Coverage of the FCC's Set-Top Proposal

National Cable & Telecommunications Association president Michael Powell has been making that point this week at the INTX convention in Boston and before that in an interview with Multichannel News [subscription required].

"This vibrant and healthy market is giving consumers unprecedented options and choice, and we should not freeze this innovation in place with a backward-looking technology mandate that will do far more harm than good," the coalition said.

Accelerating their objections to the FCC's "unlock the box" set-top proposal, minority programming and ownership advocates took their message to Capitol Hill last Thursday (April 14), backing up Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-New York), who said she envisions that a "protracted struggle" over the plan "will set us back in the drive for diversity."

The Brooklyn, N.Y., legislator, a member of the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, warned that the revenue restrictions triggered by the FCC plan "could lead to the ultimate extinction" of small and medium-sized programmers, including minority and special-interest programmers.

Thursday's assault on the FCC proposal was the latest in the escalating battle against the set-top Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.  Last month Clarke, other members of Congress and diversity organizations asked the Government Accountability Office to run an impact study of the plan’s implications.

"Major disruptions that fail to consider bargaining power will impact placement, affecting advertising dollars and, in turn, the ability to remain competitive and to sustain livelihoods," Clarke told an audience of about 50 people, mostly Congressional staffers and supportive lobbyists, in a House Office Building meeting room.

"Many have stated that the FCC’s new set-top proposal will, in fact, open up the marketplace so that these diverse and independent programmers gain more visibility, especially through OTT platforms," she said, but then warned, "There is no current guarantee that Silicon Valley will do a better job at prioritizing diverse and inclusive programming based on what they have demonstrated so far."

Frank Washington, CEO of Crossings TV, a Sacramento, Calif.-based firm that packages Asian (mostly Chinese) programs on cable systems, pointed out that the FCC's NPRM never uses the term "localism," which he considers a vital ingredient in programming. 

Washington also insisted that the biggest problems in the FCC proposal are not only the "unanswered questions" but, more significantly, "the unasked questions" about the plan’s impact.

"They are talking about creating an alternative universe," said Washington, a one-time legal counsel to an FCC chairman and later deputy chief of the FCC's Broadcast Bureau. "There is no accountability in this alternative universe." 

He urged the Commission to "let the marketplace drive the progress," not impose an untested system that will affect revenue and distribution.

Although the recently-created Future of TV Coalition (topped by the NCTA, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and many other MSOs and industry vendors) was not officially part of the program, the organization’s message permeated the Capitol Hill program. 

For example, Carlos Gutierrez, general counsel for the LGBT Technology Partnership, outlined views on data privacy implications that echoed the Coalition’s.

Gutierrez cited the "troubling lack of specifics in the NPRM" and emphasized that the FCC plan would not require new STB suppliers to comply with "the same privacy provisions as cable operators."

"The NPRM doesn't have a mechanism to account for data breaches by OTT providers," Gutierrez said, underscoring the importance of that protection.

Dr. Nicol Turner-Lee, vice president of policy and chief research officer of the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council (MMTC), voiced concerns that the FCC plan would morph into a federal mandate. 

"The government should not pick winners and losers," Turner-Lee said. "Government should not mandate the ways consumers get to the content they want."

She added that the FCC has not looked at diversity in a serious way, especially as part of the STB plan.

Washington, calling on his long background in media since he left the FCC, said that based on recent conversations he has had at the agency, the "FCC people are feeling the heat."

The Future of TV Coalition, which includes cable and other ISPs pushing back on the FCC's set-top box unlocking proposal, will host a demonstration of just how many choices cable and satellite subs already have to access content.

That demonstration -- April 13 at NCTA headquarters -- follows FCC chairman Tom Wheeler's appearance as a witness before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee, where he said that 99% of cable and satellite subs don't have choices," the coalition pointed out in announcing the event.

NCTA president and former FCC chairman Michael Powell has not been shy about criticizing current FCC chairman and former NCTA president Wheeler's proposal to make set-top data and programming streams available to third-party box and app developers as a way to promote his mantra of "competition, competition, competition."

The coalition's argument is that that competition is "already there, already there, already there."

Powell has said the proposal is, at its base, government assistance to one set of big tech interests to get access to the intellectual property of others and monetize it without the obligation to negotiate terms, share in data collection or generate revenue from the content created by others.

Wheeler's response to such arguments was, literally, "balderdash" (also to the Senate Appropriations subcommittee).

Washington — Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler stopped short of saying he would press the pause button on his proposal to “unlock” cable set-top boxes, but he has signaled he would work with members of the committee on their issues with the proposal.

And they did have issues.

The key to that exchange — which took place at an FCC oversight hearing on Capitol Hill — was that it was with a Democratic legislator who was asking for the delay, and that lawmaker wasn’t alone.

Last week, the National Urban League joined the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition and others in calling on the FCC to delay any action on the set-top proposal until it had studied the impact of the proposal on diverse programmers.

Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) said at the hearing that she has asked the Congressional Research Service to conduct such a study, and asked Wheeler if he would be willing to hold off until the study was completed.

Wheeler did not commit to a delay, saying only that he would “look forward to working with [Clarke] and the committee” on any issues raised. He did not say he would delay the proceeding, and he said he did not know how long a delay was contemplated.

As expected, committee Republicans hammered Wheeler over the proposal, saying it threatened copyright protections and privacy and was unnecessary and rooted in old technology and thinking. That pushback has now become bipartisan.

Also at the hearing, Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.) went so far as to suggest that he joined some stakeholders in concerns that the proposal could mean a new form of digital redlining.

Butterfield said he was concerned about the potential for the “myriad unintended consequences” of the proposal, including the ability to enforce copyright protections for content creators and distributors.

Wheeler continued to assert last week that the proposal doesn’t threaten copyright holders. In providing an example, though, he also provided fodder for cable ISPs and other opponents.

In talking about his proposal and how it would not allow those third parties to ride roughshod over copyright protections, Wheeler said there are “today the equivalent of competitive set-top boxes available in the market,” citing Google’s Chromecast device. Wheeler said that Chromecast does not violate copyright, does not “overlay commercials” and is not out to take over cable TV, calling that notion “malarkey.”

The Future of TV Coalition, which includes cable ISPs and others opposing the set-top proposal, was quick to pick up that comment and run with it, saying it showed there are already alternatives in the market and that makes the set-top proposal unnecessary.

“If the classic Washington definition of a ‘gaffe’ is to accidentally tell the truth, Chairman Wheeler’s comments at today’s hearing are a whopper,” the coalition said in a statement. “He admitted, plainly and clearly, that apppowered devices like Chromecast and Roku offer consumers an alternative to traditional set-top boxes and are readily available in the marketplace. Which begs the question — why is the chairman so desperate to solve a problem that he admits does not exist?

“Chairman Wheeler correctly points out that apps-driven innovation is already allowing consumers to watch video on a wide range of devices — without hurting small and independent programmers, invading privacy, or undermining copyright protections. Why, then, is he proposing a sweeping mandate that explicitly rejects this apps approach and strips TV providers of the technical and contractual tools they currently use to ensure these protections remain in place?”

In response, FCC press secretary Kim Hart told Multichannel News: “What the coalition fails to acknowledge is that 99% of pay TV consumers rent a box from their pay TV provider, paying $231 a year on average. The marketplace is not providing consumers with choice.

“While Roku and Chromecast may provide ‘equivalent’ functions to a set-top box, today these devices and consumers that use them remain bound by the whims of the pay TV industry,” Hart added. “Pay TV providers choose which device to make an app for and independent app providers cannot develop an app to display this video programming. For instance, no MVPD provides an app to Chromecast.”

WASHINGTON — “Box” is probably the wrong fighting term to use about the current set-top fracas involving the Federal Communications Commission, multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) and Silicon Valley. It’s more like a bare-knuckles cage match over the future of access to video.

On one side are the MVPDs, who argue the marketplace is already opening up access to video programming without the FCC forcing providers to disaggregate their programming for reassembly by others.

The FCC — pressed by Silicon Valley giant Google, TV-maker Vizio, digital video recorder maker TiVo and others — stands on the other side, saying it’s time to break the MVPDs’ leased lockbox on programming and prices.

What’s at stake is nothing less than the future of television and how its viewers will consume it — and who can access the reams of valuable data MVPDs now use to sell to advertisers. The question of who can access that information also poses huge privacy and security issues for TV watchers.

In December, the Consumer Choice Video Coalition (CVCC) — backed by Silicon Valley giants including Google, TiVo, Vizio, Public Knowledge, the Writers Guild of America, competitive telecom carrier trade group INCOMPAS (formerly COMPTEL) and others — demonstrated a new set-top box for FCC staffers, hoping to convince the agency to crack open leased cable boxes for competing over-the-top providers. Of the 21 coalition members present, one-third were from Google.

Fast-forward to two weeks ago, and Google — which just topped Apple as the world’s most valuable company, at half a trillion dollars in valuation — hosted a similar demonstration of the coalition’s “competitive Navigation device solution” for Capitol Hill staffers. The proposal’s mere existence is a game-changer for third-party devices, and a potential huge victory at the FCC that cable operators and studios say would hurt their businesses, as well as consumers.

The FCC has proposed to require cable operators to make their programming available to third parties in a way that cable operators say would force them to re-engineer their networks and strip away copyright and consumer protections.

Google and others in the coalition said the proposal creates a “virtual headend” so that an MVPD’s signal can be viewed along with over-the-top offerings on a competitive device. That device could be a box, phone, tablet, smart TV, dongle or even a leased cable box.

The idea is that the device allows access not only to the MVPDs’ programming, but to content from the Internet, including Netflix, Amazon Instant Video and YouTube.

More worrisome for cable operators, it could allow these third parties access to the most precious of all screen space: the first thing viewers see when they turn on the TV. Might it be an ad from Google?

Cable operators, movie studios and others have formed the Future of Television Coalition to fight the proposal. It’s not that they don’t want their content side by side with OTT, they said (and that’s already happening in the marketplace without FCC intervention). Rather, they see the FCC’s move as an unnecessary thumb on the scale for the Googles and TiVos of the world.

“It disaggregates the provider of the service from their customer, which no business is really going to like,” one coalition source said. “And it gives third parties a way to come in and get revenue out of the ecosystem that devalues the content.”

Coalition co-chairman Alfred Liggins, the president and CEO of cable network TV One, said, “The ‘AllVid’ proposal is a brazen money grab by Big Tech companies that would do severe damage to the programming ecosystem, and in particular, niche and minority-focused networks.”

Cable operators argue that the proposal is essentially a revival of the AllVid proposal the FCC offered up in 2010. Wheeler and FCC officials, though, say the new plan is far from that.

Wheeler has pushed the plan with tough talk about the skyrocketing price of set-tops and the lack of competition. He went so far as to use a Public Knowledge/Consumer Federation of America chart at a press conference to illustrate why it’s necessary to “unlock” the box for edge providers and consumer groups. (Gigi Sohn, a top adviser to Wheeler, is the co-founder of Public Knowledge.)

At press time, cable operators and other members of the Future of Television Coalition hadn’t seen Wheeler’s notice of proposed rulemaking, so all they had to go on in formulating reasons why the FCC was on the wrong track were the painful (for them) memories of AllVid and the CVCC proposal.

Multichannel News talked to senior FCC officials who have seen the NPRM to get their responses to the cable operators’ key concerns — and they have a ton of them.

So, in one corner, from an NCTA filing with guidance from Future of TV Coalition sources, are the perceived blows the chairman’s proposal would inflict on a video-access marketplace if it unfolds along the lines of the proposal put forth by Google et al. In the other, top FCC officials, speaking not for attribution, weigh in with their responses.

Would this turn the “opening screen” — what viewers see when they turn on their TV sets — over to a third party?

MVPDs: The first screen could be “Welcome to Google” only, with ads down the side. How would a Cox Communications or Comcast subscriber get directly to their channel lineups (on the same channels) on that opening screen as well?

FCC: “While we cannot predict the design or interface that device makers and software developers may come up with, they will be required to pass through all of the content the consumer is entitled to receive. The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking asks how that should be defined,” an FCC source told Multichannel News. “This proposal is intended to introduce competition in devices and apps available to consumers. If a consumer does not like the interface or user experience available on one offering, they could look for an alternative offered by a competitor.” In other words, what that opening screen will show is yet to be determined.

What happens to programming agreements?

MVPDs: Retail devices would have access to parts of the MVPD service from which they could create their own service offerings, without responsibility or compensation to programmers or MVPDs.

FCC: “The CableCard works the same way,” an FCC source said. “It gives an independent vendor such as a TiVo access to the MVPDs’ programming and guide information. And none of these things have happened.

“And on the compensation issue: If you think about this logically, if I’m a Comcast subscriber, I’m paying Comcast whether I’m using their box or whether I use a TiVo box,” the agency source added. “Comcast is then passing that money on to the programmers, based on the fact that I count as one of their eyeballs. They are also able to sell advertising based on the fact that I count as one of their eyeballs. Nothing that our proposal would do would change any of that. They keep their subs; they keep their subs’s money. We’re just saying you should be able to get a box or view it with an app on any device you want without disrupting any agreement between the programmer and the MVPD.”

Under the CableCard regime, third parties are not required to display the guide in the same manner as MVPDs, but they are required to pass through a channel lineup, and that won’t change, the official said. “Any package that the consumer has paid for shall be passed through in full and displayed in full by the third party,” the FCC source said.

In addition to those channels being available in order, they can also be searched by category in a similar way as can be searched today. “If an MVPD can do that today and be in compliance with a third-party programming agreement, why wouldn’t a third party be able to do that?”

Would this proposal infringe on copyrights?

MVPDs: Device manufacturers would be allowed to infringe on programmers’ copyrights by displaying and copying protected works through manufacturers’ own services without permission or compensation.

FCC: “Nothing we are doing undoes any copyright protections that exist today.

“As part of our proposal, we would require that the copy-protection information be transmitted from the MVPD to the device or app, and that the device or app must honor that copy protection mandate from the programmer.” If the device doesn’t honor copy-protection rules, programmers would have the same redress as they do under copyright, the official pointed out, though that is not the FCC’s purview.

Would consumers lose modern features offered by the box, like Time Warner Cable’s “Start Over?”

MVPDs: Consumers would be denied access to many modern MVPD service features like voice search, starting a show in progress at the beginning and other interactive enhancements, which MVPDs rely on to ensure the quality of their user experience and to provide value to their customers and stay competitive.

FCC: If viewers want such enhancements, they can keep them. “We’re not telling anyone they have to give up their cable box. All we are saying is that, as a consumer, if you want to buy somebody else’s box, you should be able to. And who’s to say that new box won’t have those features or a different feature that consumers want?”

Wouldn’t the proposal require some sort of in-home adapter, not to mention added costs for consumers?

MVPDs: MVPDs must provide customers with a government-designed in-home, leased device in order to receive MVPD service on a retail device, raising equipment and energy costs for consumers. FCC: Officials said that sounded like AllVid, which they said was not the chairman’s proposal. “We are not designing a device. In fact, we are not even mandating a device. We are very pro-app, and software and competitive devices [in] whatever format these innovators want to develop in. We are just trying to encourage that. AllVid was two boxes. We were telling people we are going to design a box and you have to have two boxes to get your cable programming. But that’s not what we are doing here.

“In fact, we would love it if our proposal resulted in no boxes. The way of the future is not the box. Wouldn’t it be great if you could just hook up your MVPD service to your Smart TV and you could see everything?”

Would this complicate issues like privacy, and perhaps thwart emergency alerts?

MVPDs: Device manufacturers are not obligated to abide by Title VI consumer protection regulations such as, among others, privacy protections and emergency alert requirements.

FCC: “Our proposal specifically seeks comment on maintaining emergency alerting. The safety of the public is very important to the commission. Nothing that we do in our proposal to create a competitive marketplace will undermine emergency alerting.”

As to consumer-protection regulations, the official said that MVPDs do have different obligations under the Cable Act than device manufacturers. “Title VI applies to MVPDs only.” But the official said that those device manufacturers are already subject to some pretty strict privacy laws and regulations of their own, enforced by the Federal Trade Commission — citing a “ton” of consent decrees against app and device manufacturers and the fact they are subject to strict California laws on privacy, as well as strict European Union privacy regulations for any device or app sold in member countries.

Can this make it easier for hackers since there’s now a single point of attack?

MVPDs: Cable operators and other providers would have to use a common content encryption technology (DTCP-IP), creating a single point of attack for hackers. DTCP-IP also does not support today’s rapidly evolving video business models.

FCC: That is a reference to what CVCC is asking, said one official, and the chairman’s proposal “is not that.” He said the chairman’s proposal “recognizes there are a wide variety of methods for protecting content from theft and misuse, and TV providers ought to use multiple systems,” and so the proposal “does not prescribe any particular content-protection system” so those can evolve. But the proposal does recognize that third parties need access to those content protection systems, whatever they wind up being, so the proposal requires that a pay TV provider license at least one such system on reasonable terms. “There will be no government standard that we select, or even that we approve” and the FCC remains “tech-neutral” on hardware vs. software.

Doesn’t this force MVPDs to essentially give away their guide data?

MVPDs: MVPDs would be required to provide program-guide data, which they do not own, to retail devices, thereby exceeding their licenses with guide data suppliers.

FCC: The FCC will seek comment on the “exact level” of information that is needed to pass through from an MVPD to a third party in order to maintain all of the rights the consumer has paid for.

Could this focus on box-vs.-no box stifle innovation in next-generation technologies, not to mention the growing demand for apps?

MVPDs: Providers would have to support an expensive legacy technical solution, thereby interfering with plans to deploy next-generation systems and technologies (e.g., IP cable and IPv6).

Moreover, this would force cable operators and others to implement an inflexible, one-size-fits-all technology mandate that ignores the video marketplace transition to apps and creates a drag on innovation in the highly dynamic video-device marketplace.

FCC: “That, again, sounds like AllVid. This isn’t AllVid.

“It’s very clear by everything we have put out that we are very supportive of apps. We think apps are the way of the future and what we are proposing to do is tech-neutral. It does not mandate a box. If people want to develop a box and consumers are happy with boxes, they are welcome to them. But what we are trying to do here is let people innovate, whether they want to do boxes or something that is like the Amazon Fire stick or if they want to do an app. All options are open in the proposal.”

How would technology standards be decided for this new sharing arrangement?

MVPDs: The proposal relies on standards not yet invented or implemented and would take years to develop — by which time the “solution” will likely have become outdated.

FCC: On the one hand, the official said, cable operators have consistently said they don’t want the agency setting a standard and “now they aren’t happy with us wanting to let a standards body set the standards, a body we think they should be a part of. It is tough to have it both ways.

“We are requiring the standards be set by an open standards body with participation from MVPDs, CE manufacturers, app developers and generally following the executive guidance on open standards bodies. We don’t want to be in the middle of it. It is not a government-mandated standard.”

How does this proposal change what is already happening in the marketplace, with viewers accessing cable and over-the-top side-by-side without the FCC stepping in?

MVPDs: This is a solution in search of a problem.

FCC: “It is very true that some of the larger MVPDs make apps available to certain devices where they entered into contracts with those devices.

“The problem is, today if I open up, say, a Comcast app on my Smart TV, I can’t search what is available to me through my Comcast subscription versus what is available to me from Netflix. I have to go into each app, search inside that app, get out, go to the next screen if I want to go to Hulu after that.

“The nice thing about being able to let unaffiliated vendors develop apps for devices is that we anticipate functionality very similar to what TiVo does today, allowing consumers to search across all the sources of programming that they have access to because they pay for many of these things. It will be easier for consumers to find the programming they want at the price they want to pay for it.”

Click here for more FCC set-top box news.

Even as the FCC was unveiling chairman Tom Wheeler's proposal to bring competition to the set-top market by "unlocking" cable boxes and making the information available to competitors who want to wed traditional and online video content (an AllVid-like proposal), the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, American Cable Association, Motion Picture Association of America, and a host of others were unveiling the Future of TV Coalition to beat the commission to the consumer video choice punch.

The coalition, co-chaired by Alfred Liggins of TV One and Nomi Bergman of Bright House, will celebrate and promote what its 47 members say is the already thriving innovation in video experience options to provide even more choices.

Look for it to be making that point loudly to the FCC as the commission collects comments on the chairman's proposal, which was premised on the assertion that the video access device market instead needed a competitive boost because choices were few and prices high, with consumers "chained to their set-top boxes because cable and satellite operators have locked up the market."

"The ‘AllVid’ proposal is a brazen money grab by Big Tech companies that would do severe damage to the programming ecosystem, and in particular, niche and minority-focused networks," said Liggins in a statement. "Everyone who cares about quality, diverse television should let the FCC know that AllVid is a harmful non-starter.”

As NCTA argued in comments warning the FCC off an AllVid approach, the coalition said Wednesday (Jan. 27) that such an approach would allow a handful of tech companies to "replace innovation with government regulation." It said that AllVid "would force programmers and TV providers to dismantle their shows and services for these companies to repackage, reuse, and exploit without negotiating for the rights like everybody else in the market does today. AllVid would not give viewers access to any new programming or content that isn’t already available in their homes and would not replace or lower their existing television bills."

FCC officials speaking on background say their proposal would not force the disaggregation of TV content, would respect existing MVPD contracts with programmers and their subs, and would not require anyone to get a competing device if they were satisfied with their current box.

But they also signaled that they think it is necessary to "unlock" the MVPD's hold on video access devices.

Other members of the new coalition include AT&T/DirecTV and DISH.