Before joining CBS over a dozen years ago, Harlow was director of government relations for the National Association of Broadcasters. 

“In this unprecedented time of historical events and an uncertain legislative landscape, having seasoned professionals is critical to delivering client wins. We are thrilled to welcome Bryce Harlow to our bipartisan Government Relations team,” said Subject Matter partner Steve Elmendorf in a statement. 

That experience includes important work on broadcasters' successful effort on getting Congress to sunset the STELAR law that granted satellite companies a blanket license do import distant TV network signals rather than having to negotiate independently for them. Broadcasters argued that blanket license was an artificially low price for their increasingly valuable signals. 

Harlow's resume also includes helping establish the do-not-call registry while with the Federal Trade Commission and legislative aide to the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

Before joining CBS over a dozen years ago, Harlow was director of government relations for the National Association of Broadcasters. 

“In this unprecedented time of historical events and an uncertain legislative landscape, having seasoned professionals is critical to delivering client wins. We are thrilled to welcome Bryce Harlow to our bipartisan Government Relations team,” said Subject Matter partner Steve Elmendorf in a statement. 

That experience includes important work on broadcasters' successful effort on getting Congress to sunset the STELAR law that granted satellite companies a blanket license do import distant TV network signals rather than having to negotiate independently for them. Broadcasters argued that blanket license was an artificially low price for their increasingly valuable signals. 

Harlow's resume also includes helping establish the do-not-call registry while with the Federal Trade Commission and legislative aide to the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

AT&T said it has been negotiating with all the networks to continue to deliver signals to truckers, RVs and others after Congress passed a bill, the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act Reauthorization (STELAR) Act, that ended the blanket license June 1, requiring AT&T to negotiate individual deals if it wanted to continue to import distant network TV signals to markets and subs who lacked a local version. 

Related: AT&T Faces Renewed Pressure to Sell DirecTV

Fox is the first deal to get done.

“It is critical for our customers to be able to access network TV programming, especially during this global pandemic,” said AT&T EVP Federal Relations Tim McKone. “With this agreement, essential workers, like those on oil rigs and long-haul truckers, can stay connected with news and information. We appreciate FOX for putting the interests of consumers first and we hope the other networks follow suit.” 

AT&T has been asking for an extension of that deadline until Jan. 1, 2021, rather than having to cut off the signals during the pandemic.  

AT&T could also have preserved the blanket license by agreeing to deliver local signals to a dozen small markets. 

Unlike cable operators, satellite operators have no must-carry requirement, though if they carry any local stations they must carry them all. AT&T has chosen not to deliver stations in a dozen of the smallest markets via DirecTV, instead importing distant network signals and offering an over-the-air option for local stations alongside its satellite service. 

Late last year, STELAR, which allowed satellite operators to import distant network TV station signals to viewers who lacked them, including truckers, RV users and tailgaters on the go, short markets lacking one or more affiliate, and viewers whose market had an affiliate but who could not get a viewable signal. It got those signals at a blanket license rate, and did not have to negotiate with TV stations for them, which it now must do, and has been trying to do.

Related: Deal Struck on STELAR Successor Bills

The legislation extended the compulsory license for truckers, RV users and tailgaters and those in short markets, until May 31, 2020.

Broadcasters, when they were pushing for a STELAR sunset, did express their their willingness to provide a glide path for the sunset. But they also said that AT&T could solve the issue and get a permanent blanket license by serving the last dozen or so markets with local signals as Dish does.

Suspension is a procedure for fast-tracking noncontroversial bills, so the bill is expected to pass.

Currently, the mandate sunsets every five years unless Congress renews it. But the TVPA does not renew the compulsory satellite license at the heart of STELAR, which was delegated to the House Judiciary but which also sunsets Dec. 31. 

The license allows satellite operators to import distant network-affiliated TV station signals to markets that lack them. 

Related: ACA Has Issues with TVPA 

The bill is expected to pass, but what happens next is unclear.  

House Energy & Commerce Communications Subcommittee chairman Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) and ranking member Greg Walden (R-Ore.) reached the agreement on the TVPA. 

If it makes it to the President's desk--and Judiciary does indeed add the license renewal part--the bill would allow MVPD buying groups the same good faith guarantee in negotiations as individual companies, as ACA Connects had lobbied for, and still requires fee disclosures by MVPDs and prohibits MVPDs from charging consumers for some equipment.  

But where it goes next is unclear. The House Judiciary has been busy with impeachment hearings and an industry source said there did not seem to be any movement on its re-upping of the license, which broadcasters would be happy to see go. 

The Congress could punt on the issue for a couple of months in a couple of ways, passing a bill extending the license and good faith provisions until early in the New Year, as happened a decade ago. Or it could be slipped in as an extension into the continuing resolution--CR--Congress will need to pass soon to keep the government open past Dec. 20. 

No word on how the Senate is proceeding with STELAR bills on that side of the aisle, though the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has signaled he wants the compulsory license to sunset, while Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) has said he thinks it is important to renew it, and has introduced a straight renewal bill and pitched it on the Senate floor.  

STELAR provides for the compulsory license that allows satellite operators to import distant network affiliated TV stations into markets that lack them and for the provision that requires all MVPDs and TV stations to negotiate retransmission consent in good faith. 

Related: Senate Takes Long Look at STELAR 

CRS "provides policy and legal analysis to committees and Members of both the House and Senate, regardless of party affiliation.”

In the report, the author's summary concludes with a dotted-line connecting the dots between sunset and blackout. 

Dot 1) "If both the Copyright and Communications Act provisions of the STELA Reauthorization Act expire, broadcast station owners would likely have greater advantage in negotiating with cable, telco and satellite operators than they do currently," the report said.  The good faith bargaining requirement is one of the provisions.

Dot 2) "When broadcast station owners and cable, telco and/or satellite operators do not reach retransmission consent agreements, the station owners may “black out” their signals," it said.  

Dotted line) "If Congress does not renew the FCC’s mediation role and retransmission consent disputes were to become more frequent, cable, telco, and satellite subscribers could experience more interruptions of broadcast television programming." 

That is the argument MVPDs have been making for retaining the good faith provision. 

The report features some clip-and-save elements, including a timeline for the two-decade-long process of renewing STELAR, which expires every five years, and a summary of the current legislative efforts in the House and Senate to renew it, or alternatively, provide a glide path for eliminating the compulsory license.

House E&C Approves STELAR Reauthorization Bill 

The bill allows buying groups, notably the National Cable Television Cooperative, to have the same good faith benefits and responsibilities under the law as individual cable operators. But there are limits on the scope of those groups, limits ACA Connects said will "restrain trade and harm consumers." 

“We thank the Committee for recognizing the benefits of extending the Federal Communications Commission’s good faith rules to retransmission consent negotiations between large broadcast stations groups and buying groups that represent small and medium sized pay-TV providers," said ACA Connects president Matt Polka, adding: “We’re pleased that the buying group provision in the bill adopted today includes a framework for providing good faith protections to buying groups." 

But there was a "but." "[W]e we are disappointed in the metrics that limit the number of subscribers who can benefit and reduce the large station groups that are covered," he added.  

Polka outlined the problematic provisions, saying that the bill: 

• "Caps the number of subscribers of an MVPD eligible to participate in the buying group to 500,000 subscribers, excluding MVPDs that regularly participate in buying group deals; 

• "Limits the buying group from representing more than 25 percent of households in a single market of a large station group, excluding smaller MVPDs especially in smaller markets from participating in buying group deals; 

• "Arbitrarily restricts the number of large station groups that must negotiate with a buying group to only those with a national audience reach of more than 20 percent, which includes only 12 station groups. It means a broadcast station group like Disney, with 8 stations, is included, but other broadcast station groups like Hearst, which owns 32 full power stations, are excluded; 

• "Delays buying groups from taking advantage of the rules until next year; and 

• "Imposes other restrictions on buying groups with regard to their negotiations with broadcasters that are not obligations on buying groups with respect to their talks with cable programmers." 

The bill must still be reconciled with a House Judiciary Committee bill reauthorizing the satellite distant-signal compulsory license, passed by the full House and reconciled with a Senate bill or bills, all by the end of the year, when the STELAR law expires. 

That came on vote Wednesday (Nov. 20) after bipartisan Communications Subcommittee leadership came to agreement on a compromise version of the bill, principally the addition of that permanent provision. 

Related: House E&C Strikes STELAR Renewal Deal 

The committee technically favorably reported the bill to the full House, and did so by a voice vote with no nays recorded. The vote was swift and uneventful.  

The latest version of the bill, introduced by Communications Subcommittee chairman Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) also allows MVPD buying groups the same good faith guarantee in negotiations as individual cable operators, as ACA Connects had lobbied for, though with limits on the scope of those buying groups, and still requires fee disclosures by MVPDs, more complete e-billing, and prohibits MVPDs from charging consumers for some equipment.  

Walden said he would have preferred a more open process on the bill, but said it ended up in a fairly good place. He still said he was not sure STELAR should be reauthorized, or necessarily would be since the Judiciary Committee must still renew the satellite compulsory license portion of the bill. 

But he said the permanent good faith renewal meant the days of using the legislation for targeted media reforms was over and that should mean Congress looked at those changes separately and through regular order--one of his complaints about the Doyle bill is that it was marked up in subcommittee without a hearing on the substance. 

He praised the inclusion of the MVPD buying groups provision, which both allows those groups to negotiate with broadcasters but also holds them to good faith requirements. 

He called the bill "not perfect," but said it was sound public policy that did not give everyone what they wanted.  

Doyle said he was glad to include making the good faith provision permanent, which was not part of his original bill. 

House E&C chairman Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) called the bill pro-consumer and pro-competition.

The National Association of Broadcasters, in seeking the sunset of STELAR, has said the good faith mandate is unnecessary since it is in broadcasters' best interest to get deals done, but praised it as a better alternative.

"NAB applauds a key provision in the House Commerce Committee-passed STELAR bill today that makes permanent legislation requiring broadcasters and pay TV companies to conduct carriage negotiations in 'good faith'," said NAB president Gordon Smith. "While we continue to question the need for STELAR legislation, a 'permanent good faith' requirement is far preferable to the current five-year STELAR renewal cycle that has incentivized pay TV companies to force broadcast TV programming disruptions that harm consumers."

It was scheduled for debate and a vote at a 10 a.m. hearing, but the combination of an 18-bill agenda, interruptions for votes, and extended debate and amendments on bills dealing with vaping and asbestos and pipelines pushed the meeting to almost nine hours, with no broadband-related bills or STELAR making it into that window. 

Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), chairman of the E&C Committee, recessed the hearing until Wednesday--so, technically, it has still not ended--saying the committee would reconvene 30 minutes after the adjournment of a Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change hearing, which is scheduled for 10 a.m.

Still to be considered, in addition to STVPA, are bills on broadband mapping, spectrum, 5G, and network security.  

He warned of the viewers who would lose access to distant network signals if the law were allowed to sunset. 

It expires at the end of the year unless reauthorized or that deadline date extended.  

House E&C Schedules STAR Markup 

Wicker has proposed a simple five-year reauthorization, STAR or Satellite Television Act Reauthorization, but pulled it from a markup last week, likely because he did not have the votes to pass it out of the Senate Commerce Committee, of which he is chair. 

There are at least two bills in the House, both with added reforms that could make it tough to reconcile with a Senate bill. 

Following is a transcript of Wicker's floor statement, as supplied by his office: 

"Madam President, I rise today because there is a legislative deadline in front of this body that we dare not miss. Even as I speak, our colleagues in the House Energy and Commerce Committee are considering the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act Reauthorization – or STELAR. 

"For 30 years, STELAR and previous versions of the law have allowed people who live beyond the reach of a broadcast signal to receive broadcast programming nonetheless. 

"Some Senators believe that in 2019 STELAR has outlived its usefulness and want it to expire. But other Senators want to extend some of these provisions – at least in the short term – to prevent consumers from losing these broadcast signals. Still others want to use the STELAR reauthorization legislation as a vehicle to implement other reforms. 

"I have introduced new legislation, the Satellite Television Access Reauthorization – or STAR – to move this process forward. The existing STELAR statute expires December 31st. 

"So absent congressional action before the end of the year, the provisions included in STELAR that enable nearly 870,000 Americans to access broadcast TV signals will no longer be the law of the land. 

"These Americans, who depend on STELAR, are mostly in rural parts of this country, like my home state of Mississippi. They include truckers, tailgaters, and RV drivers. And they include Americans living in very remote areas. 

"I say to my colleagues, now is the time for Senators to make their positions clear. Over the course of this year, I have been polling Members to ascertain what this body wants. As Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, I will act according to the majority wishes. But time is running short. 

"Many people point to the fact that the media landscape is changing. There are more options for video content than ever before. New programming is coming out every day that is being streamed through new services. Those are all great things. As I said at a June Commerce Committee hearing, we are living in the Golden Age of television. 

"The Commerce Committee has been working to close the digital divide between rural and urban America to make sure all families can access those choices and all families can be part of the Golden Age. But, there are still Americans without internet access and without broadcast signals. They deserve the ability to view basic television services, just like everyone else. 

"Without the reauthorization of STELAR, many Americans would not be able to watch broadcast news or enjoy access to programming that is available for the rest of the country. They will be on the wrong side of the digital divide, and there would be a widening cultural divide as they would be cut off from the flow of programs and information. 

"If members of this body are of a mind to move forward with some extension of this statute, we will work with our colleagues in the House. That may include improvements and enhancements to STELAR that address good faith requirements, level the playing field in the marketplace, promote access to programming, and ensure robust competition. But we don’t have much time. 

"After this week, senators will go home for Thanksgiving. Many of those across the country who benefit from STELAR in our states will watch football games and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade thanks to the STELAR law. They will enjoy time with their families, and I look forward to doing the same. 

"But when Congress returns, there will be just two weeks – ten legislative days – to finalize any legislation and send it to the President for a signature. 

"Madam President, in this body taking no action is easy, it comes naturally. But in this case no action equals the repeal of the STELAR law in its entirety and members should know that. 

"We have ten days to ensure 870,000 Americans will be able to watch the same programs next year that they are seeing this year. Or we can let STELAR expire and take the risk of letting the chips fall where they may." 

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) on Nov. 6 introduced the Satellite Television Access Reauthorization (STAR) Act (see Rules), the latest reauthorization of STELAR, which is itself the latest legislative incarnation of the law that allows satellite operators to import distant network-TV station signals to viewers who can’t get a local, off-air, signal.

RELATED:Stars Collide: Committee Chairs Diverge Over STELAR

At one time or another, the legislation, as a bill or a draft bill, has been called SHVA (the Satellite Home Viewer Act), SHVIA (the Satellite Home Viewer Improvement Act), SHVERA (the Satellite Home Viewer Extension & Reauthorization Act), SHVURA (the Satellite Home Viewer Update and Reauthorization Act), the vowel-challenged SHVDTA (the Satellite Home Viewer Digital Television Act), STELA (the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act) and before Wicker’s latest stab, STELAR, the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act Reauthorization, and now, a STAR is born. Perhaps it is appropriate for a bill coming out of Congress that a star begins life as a big cloud of gas.

The last two versions of the name were at least an adjectival effort to tie it to the topic, i.e. twinkling celestial bodies that some people are wishing on (“geostationary satellites flash with glints of reflected sunlight,” says a post on the NASA website). Broadcasters wish the license would go away, while cable operators wish legislators would use the law to reform retransmission consent rules.

In any case, the name has come full circle to only four letters and a pronounceable four letters at that. Having tracked this law, and good-naturedly tweaked its namers, from SHVA’s unpronounceable origin, The Wire’s work appears to be done.

The chairs of the Senate committees that jointly oversee the issue, both Republicans, appear to be poles apart, with only a handful of legislative working days left (19 as of Nov. 12) before the license expires and hundreds of thousands of viewers could lose access to their favorite network shows.

The Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act (STELAR) sunsets every five years unless renewed, in this case by Dec. 31.

Broadcasters and multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) have been on different sides of this issue for years. TV station owners have lobbied to get rid of the license, which they said allows MVPDs to pay below-market rates while choosing not to deliver local stations into some local markets, instead importing stations from Los Angeles and New York since they have the distant-signal alternative.

MVPDs have said the license allows them to serve viewers whose stations have failed to deliver signals to the markets whose public interest they are duty-bound to serve as the quid pro quo for that free spectrum.

More than 800,000 viewers are in markets where one or all of their network affiliates aren’t available. Also affected are truckers and tailgaters who get distant signals on the road.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, made it clear at a Hill hearing last month that he wants to renew the license, and last week introduced a one-page bill, the Satellite Television Access Reathorization (STAR) Act, that would simply re-up it for five more years.

Wicker said he believed STELAR remained critical for preserving access to video services for rural residents — such as those in his home state — and others on the wrong side of the digital divide. Wicker on Nov. 6 introduced a STELAR reauthorization bill to be marked up Nov. 13.

Cable and satellite operators are rooting for that outcome in hopes of getting some elements of retrans reform — mandatory arbitration, a ban on blackouts — that they have been trying to add to the bill in recent renewal cycles.

That’s because another provision in STELAR that will sunset at year-end unless renewed is the requirement that the FCC ensure broadcasters and cable operators negotiate retrans agreements in good faith.

Enter Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who wrote to the Big Four networks’ top Washington executives a letter that could have been drafted by those lobbyists (see sidebar below). Graham effectively assumed the law was sunsetting and suggested a one-year transition plan for the license to prevent the dislocation of those three quarters of a million viewers.

“The 2011 Copyright Office study Report on Marketplace Alternatives to Replace Statutory Licenses urged the end of the compulsory video licenses in Title 17,” Graham wrote. “Three years later, Congress agreed and the STELA Reauthorization Act of 2014 extended the Section 119 Compulsory license in our nation’s copyright laws only until Dec. 31, 2019. As this expiration date approaches, I am writing to inquire about ABC’s transition plan to a free market at the end of this calendar year to avoid any impact on consumers.”

Graham was right about the Copyright Office, which has indeed recommended a sunset. But saying Congress agreed is a bit of a stretch since the law did not sunset it in 2014. Instead it was renewed for the full five years until 2019.

Cable lobbyists countered the Graham missive with one of their own, circulating a letter to the Hill from the powerful International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers calling for renewal.

Given the divide between broadcasters and MVPDs, and now between Graham and Wicker, it is unlikely that either extreme sought — major retrans reform in a renewed STELAR on one hand, or a sunset and transition to the “free market” Graham invoked repeatedly in his letter — will be the result.

A more likely outcome would be renewal, but perhaps on a shorter, three-year time frame. It’s also possible that with so few days left, lawmakers fail to reach agreement and extend the license for a month or two into the New Year, as happened two cycles ago.

Graham’s Un-STELAR Free-Market Glide Path

WASHINGTON — Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) laid out a plan for transitioning from the compulsory satellite license, but posed in the form of a series of questions to top lobbyists at the four major broadcast networks:

• “Is [your network] willing to provide a one-year license to satellite providers for network]-owned shows, provided you receive market-by-market usage data from each satellite provider, including the total usage by long distance truckers and RV owners?

• “Will the rate [your network] charges for your shows be comparable to the 2018 rate set by the Copyright Royalty Board for the compulsory Section 119 license?

• “Will [you] commit to supporting your affiliates as they negotiate with satellite providers during this one-year transition period on a carriage agreement for full local-into-local on both satellite providers that would begin no later than Jan. 1, 2021?

• “For areas without local affiliates, will [your network] commit to negotiating with both satellite providers during this one-year transition period on a carriage agreement that would begin no later than Jan. 1, 2021?

• “Will [your network] commit to regularly informing my committee of your ongoing efforts to reach such carriage agreements?”

The chairman of the committee, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), said that, in his opinion, STELAR remained a critical law for preserving access to video services for those rural residents and others who find themselves on the wrong side of the digital divide. He also prefaced the hearing by saying it came as the "the committee was preparing to reauthorize STELAR." 

STELAR is the latest name for the bill/law that dates from 1988 and that established the compulsory license that allows satellite operators to import distant network TV station signals into local markets where viewers lack access to them for a variety of reasons.   

It must be renewed every five years or it expires, and along with it the requirement that broadcasters and MVPDs negotiate retransmission consent deals in good faith. 

Wicker pointed to the tailgaters, long-haul truckers, RV users and others who would lost access to distant signals if STELAR sunset, with no alternative. He said he understood that many thought the law, which was adopted to help grow the then-nascent satellite industry, had outlived its usefulness, but he did not agree.  

Ranking member Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), appeared to be more in that latter camp. 

Broadcasters argue the compulsory license should sunset because it allows satellite carriers--specifically DirecTV--to avoid the expense of carrying local stations in the smallest markets, instead importing signals from L.A. and New York. They argue localism is the key and the compulsory license is a way to lock some communities out. 

Cantwell said the STELAR law was about spurring competition when it was lacking, while today there were a host of video options, while the two satellite TV providers--Dish and DirecTV--who benefited from the compulsory license--are now "mature competitors" in a marketplace with millions of customers. 

And while there is little time to use STELAR as a vehicle for major reforms, as MVPDs and some others would like, hearing witnesses and legislators highlighted some areas they would like to see addressed if the law does become such a vehicle: 

1. Indy pitch. Witness J.C. Watts, a former member of Congress and currently chairman of the Black News Channel, asked that the current set-aside for noncommercial channels on satellite in the Telecommunications Act be modified to include independent commercial programmers, like his channel, that provide original programming of an informational and educational nature. 

2. Bill Shock. Witness Jonathan Schwantes, senior policy counsel for Consumer Reports, backed adding Massachusetts Democratic Senator Ed Markey's True Fees Act to the STELAR bill, a point seconded by Sen. Markey during the hearing. The bill would provide MVPDs to disclose true fees to customers, not just the introductory prices that will go up when those fees are added. The fee most senators were talking about at the hearing was the one MVPDS are starting to break out on their bills as TV fees tied to the retrans fees they must pay, though they are not, for competitive reasons, broken out by individual channels, which Schwantes said would be more transparent. 

3. Taking Care of the orphans. A number of legislators raised the problem of orphan counties including Markey and and Sens. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.). That is when viewers on a state border are in the Nielsen market of a neighboring state and so are getting the network affiliate from that state rather than their own. Baldwin, with tongue only slightly in cheek, called it the closest thing to a political crisis when getting angry calls from folks in Wisconsin who can't get Green Bay Packers games because their Minnesota affiliate is carrying the Vikings. 

As was to be expected the broadcast and satellite witnesses sparred over who was to blame for markets where local signals were not being delivered, either by broadcasters because of their power limitations, or by satellite operators because they did not choose to deliver them, at least via their satellites. 

Emily Barr, president of Graham Media Group and chairwoman of the National Association of Broadcasters TV Board, said that AT&T's DirecTV "continues to offer only out-of-town signals to viewers in 12 markets simply because it is more profitable for the company," pointing out that Dish serves those smallest markets.

NAB wants STELAR to sunset so that MVPDs will have to pay market rates for distant signals and won't be able to avoid carrying local signals by importing distant ones without having to negotiate to do so. 

AT&T's SVP of content and programming Robert Thune said that non carriage in the 12 markets is not accurate. He said DirecTV does supply local TV stations in all 210 markets, but that in those 12 it provides a free antenna, a discount on the bill and a way to integrate those stations "seamlessly" into the viewer experience. 

Among the other highlights of the hearing were a testy Sen. John Tester (D-Mont.), whose state has 2 of the 12 markets where DirecTV does not deliver local stations. He pressed Thune on why Dish could provide the signals via satellite but not AT&T and asked him to commit to do so. Thune said they already did, and pointed to the antenna and seamless integration, but Tester asked why DirecTV didn't do it via satellite as they did at his house in Montana, which was "pretty damn remote." 

But Tester was not assuaged: "No you don't," he said. Thune said if not, the fault was the broadcasters, who didn't deliver a clear signal and didn't invest in the technology to deliver one, requiring AT&T to import a distant one. 

Tester said that he thought it was a "lack of desire on AT&T's part. "I'm not sure what the hell we can do about it on this panel," he said, "but maybe we can do something about it, and I hope we do."  

Tester had another bone to pick with AT&T. He said that he has been watching the World Series in Washington, but that that Fox station is blacked out on his farm at home--his high-speed internet isn't good enough to get it on his iPad he added. He asked why the station was blacked out. Thune said that if that was the case, it was the station's fault for not negotiating at a fair price. Tester said AT&T was not exactly "small spuds." He suggested AT&T was the big dog in the fight and likely the one with the "take it or leave it" table talk.  

Thune said that, as a party to those negotiations, it is the broadcasters who "come to us with a gun to our head telling us: 'you are going to take this price,' and when we say it is too high, they say: "Thank you for your past business, and that is an exact quote, and they threaten to pull the signal away and in some cases do." 

Barr said that has not been her experience. She said she had never experienced a blackout, but that AT&T appeared to be promoting blackouts in order to push for retrans reform in STELAR. Thune flatly denied it. 

Tester pointed out that he was paying for a station he wasn't getting, which "kind of chaps my butt." Wicker, to accompanying chuckles, said the committee would "make note of that." 

In other, and related STELAR news, Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), former chairman of the committee, said at the hearing that he would not be reintroducing his Local Choice Act this time around, which he tried to make part of the the compulsory license renewal legislation five years ago. The act would have required broadcasters to sell their signals directly to consumers, who could choose not to take them. The FCC would be a facilitator of that direct negotiation and could not mark up the price. But it would also not be required to carry TV station signals subs didn't pay for. 

Associations representing RV manufacturers, dealers, owners and the campgrounds that host RVs are calling on Congress to renew the compulsory satellite license in the STELAR law.  

That is because the license gives them access to satellite TV on the road. 

Related: Bipartisan Bill Would End Retrans, Copyright Licenses

STELAR is the latest name for the law--which dates from 1988--that established the compulsory license that allows satellite operators to import distant network TV station affiliates into local markets--and RVs--where viewers lack access to local station signals for a variety of reasons.

STELAR is scheduled to expire at year's end unless Congress renews it. MVPDs also want the compulsory license renewed since it gives them access to TV station signals without having to negotiate individually for them, while broadcasters want the license to sunset and the marketplace to decide. 

In a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee leaders--Judiciary and Commerce share oversight of the issue--the RV Industry Association, RVDA The National RV Dealers Association, ARVC the National Association of RV Parks & Campgrounds, the Family Motor Coach Association and Escapees RV Club, point out that they need the distant signals because RV enthusiasts move from one local market to another.  (The license covers truckers and sports stadium tailgaters as well).

"Our associations generally would not insert themselves into a fight between large satellite television companies and large broadcasters," the associations said. "However, the loss of access to network signals would have a significant negative impact on the quality of life for many RV families," he said. "We would emphasize that most RVers have cable or satellite subscriptions at their fixed homes, and that they are already paying once for each of the four national networks; in accessing distant network signals, they pay an additional fee to the networks through the Section 119 license. We are simply asking that they continue to be allowed to do so." 

They would like the license to be made permanent, rather than renewable every five years, as would satellite operators, but in any case to renew it.  

The letter was sent in advance of a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday (July 30) on copyright issues.

Related: Temple Tapped as Head of Copyright Office 

The license is up for renewal at the end of the year as part of the STELAR Act, with MVPDS arguing it should be renewed and broadcasters that it should go away. 

That was among a host of issues Temple addressed, and was queried on, in a House Judiciary oversight hearing Wednesday (June 26). Others included blanket music licensing, video streaming piracy and the notice and takedown regime for suspect online content. 

Judiciary shares jurisdiction over STELAR and other video licensing issues with House Energy & Commerce. 

Temple also put in a plug for a copyright small claims court so that individual artists without deep pockets could still work within the system to protect their content.  

Related: House Makes First Pass at STELAR

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) pressed Temple on the Copyright Office's (longstanding) support for sunsetting the distant-signal license created in the STELAR Act. That allows satellite operators to import a distant network affiliate signals (from L.A. and New York), when a local market lacks one for a number of reasons, including that the satellite operator--in this case DirecTV--does not deliver any local stations in a market, or a market lacks one of the Big Four affiliates. DISH delivers local stations in all markets, but DirecTV does not in about a dozen markets. 

Johnson asked how that would impact the 800,000 who still get distant TV station signals via that license. 

She pointed to the different ways to get content, YouTube, streaming services. But Johnson said that given that broadband is not yet available in the "far reaches" of the county, that still posed a problem.  

Temple said that while satellite operators, who want to keep the license, cited those 800,000, she also pointed out that the use of the license had dropped precipitously and it was not clear the 800,000 figure was households and could include RVs and other types of entities (the license covers truckers and sports stadium tailgaters as well). She said she did not think there would be significant harm to rural communities if the license were allowed to expire (as broadcasters want). 

But Temple was not done having to defend that position. Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Tex.) pressed her on whether maintaining the license would somehow be a burden on the office or deflect it from other issues, like an IT upgrade all agreed was needed.  

Escobar did not address that directly, but again said the the license had reached the limit of its effectiveness. She said the office would certainly continue to enforce the license and collect the royalties--which have dropped by 85%-99% in recent years. But that given that drop in royalties and rise in alternative viewing options, she did not see the license as being effective. She said the compulsory license, which prevents a copyright holder from negotiating individually for their work product--should only be used when there is market failure. Since there is no more market failure, she said, it should go away.  

Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Wis.) said she was concerned about those truckers and RV users and asked what their options would be and whether the office had considered grandfathering them.  

Temple said said once again that given the disnificant drop in usage of the license, there would not be a significant market harm to rural communities and that the free market, rather than a compulsory license, will take care of the issue.  

Lesko asked the committee's chair, Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) to keep those 800,000 in mind, even if that was a relatively small number. She said that when the service is taken away, she assumed they would not be happy.  

On the issue of artists without lots of money for legal fees not having equal access to copyright protection, Temple pointed out that the Copyright Office has provided support over the past few years (as far back as 2006) for a small claims "tribunal" within the office. She said that the "costs and burdens of federal copyright litigation effectively prevent those who do not have extensive resources and the high‐dollar cases from bringing suit to enforce their rights or to obtain a declaratory judgment of non‐infringement." 

During her questioning, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) asked if Temple would be willing to look at the issue of blanket licenses, where broadcasters have to pay all four music licensing organizations, as the office looks at music licensing consent decrees--Lofgren said that that blanket license regime was complicated and expensive for broadcasters. Temple said she would definitely be willing to look at that issue if Congress wanted her to.  

One thing Congress did want the Copyright Office to look at is how the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notice and takedown regime for suspect online content was functioning. 

Asked when a required Copyright Office report to Congress would be coming out on that DMCA Sec. 512 regime, she said the office would be drafting the report over the summer and hoped to have it ready by the end of the year. But she also pointed out that there were some 90,000 comments to review, as well as input from a recent roundtable on the issue. She agreed with Rep. Ben Cline (R-Va.), who asked about the report, that a lot has changed since the regime was instituted.  

Cline pointed out that video streaming piracy costs jobs and billions of dollars and asked what the office was doing about it.  

Temple pointed out that it was not an enforcement agency, but advocated for strong protections, which was a reason that for the past several years it has proposed that Congress make illegal streaming a felony. Currently, while distributing pirated copies of videos is a felony, streaming them is not. She said toughening the penalty for streaming was one thing Congress could to to help stem online video piracy. 

Both sides are storming Capitol Hill over the renewal of the STELAR satellite license that is historically a venue for some changes to the negotiations between cable operators and broadcasters over carriage. But the big guns are also out at the Federal Communications Commission, which was hit with a barrage of reply comments on its latest, congressionally mandated, quadrennial review of broadcast-ownership regulations.

Those are the same rules that a federal appeals court last week considered during oral arguments in a legal challenge to the last quadrennial review, so the courts could potentially open up a third front depending on how that matter is decided later this year.

On the FCC front, broadcasters want the agency to eliminate the top-four local ownership rules it already loosened. The commission back in fall 2017 started allowing broadcasters to own two of the four top-rated stations in a market on a case-by-case basis. It said it would still presume such combos should not be allowed, but was open to being convinced. Nexstar Media Group is trying to make such a case in Indianapolis with a deal to buy the Tribune Media stations, where it wants the FCC to let it keep Tribune’s current pair of two of the top four stations.

NAB: Ban Is Outdated

The National Association of Broadcasters is telling the FCC that given “the scale and concentration of TV stations’ competitors,” preserving the ban on owning two of the four top-rated stations makes no economic sense. It attributes cable’s opposition to that and other broadcast deregulation as pay TV’s self-serving calls to restrict a competitor.

Unsurprisingly, top station owner Nexstar was one of the prohibition’s most outspoken critics. It called it an “an unnecessary and arbitrary burden on broadcasters’ ability to obtain operating efficiencies that allow them to deliver more comprehensive news and information programming and the most-desired entertainment programming in an era of fierce competition for viewers, advertising dollars and high-quality content.”

In its filing at the FCC, NCTA-The Internet & Television Association conceded that marketplace has changed — a concession it would be hard not to make — but was still giving no quarter when it came to any more loosening of those reins on broadcast power, saying eliminating the prohibition would give broadcasters too much leverage in retrans.

NCTA signaled it was only looking out for broadcasters’ audience. It said the prohibition “remains vital to protecting consumers and promoting competition among broadcast stations in local television markets.”

Protecting consumers means preventing broadcasters from inordinately raising the retrans fees cable operators then pass on to customers, which in turn raises the blood pressure of legislators who frequently hammer those operators over their prices in Hill hearings — an issue that plays well back home.

Another key bone of contention the FCC will have to resolve is whether to continue to allow broadcasters to program their subchannels as network affiliates while not counting those streams towards the local ownership limit. Current rules hold that a single broadcaster cannot own two of the four top-rated stations in a given market, almost always network affiliates, but those limits don’t apply when one station is full power and the other a digital subchannel or low-power TV station programmed as a network affiliate.

Cable operators say that is a “loophole” that needs fixing ASAP.

“Allowing a single owner to control the broadcast of two of those networks creates the same concentration of market power, and the same leverage in retransmission-consent negotiations, regardless of whether the combination arises from the ownership of two full power stations, the ownership of an LPTV station, or the use of a multicast stream,” NCTA said. As with an affiliation swap — the prohibition does not allow such swaps to result in delivering two of the four top-rated broadcast signals — acquiring a second network affiliation using LPTV stations and multicast streams “result[s] in identical harm the top-four prohibition is meant to prevent.”

The NAB’s high dudgeon was in high gear over that suggestion. “Any effort by the commission to attribute ownership of these services based solely on their programming content would be unjustified and constitute an affront to the First Amendment rights of broadcasters,” NAB said.

Tegna Wants OTT Retrans

Station group Tegna went even further, saying not only should the FCC not impose new limits on broadcasters retrans powers — suggesting there is nothing harmful, per se, in broadcast fee increases — but the FCC should start applying retrans to OTT.

“If anything, the commission should bolster the retransmission-consent system by revisiting the question of whether virtual MVPDs such as Sling and YouTube TV should be subject to the same retransmission consent rules as traditional MVPDs,” Tegna said, suggesting the answer should be “yes.”

But the Justice Department may have handed cable operators some new fodder. That came in the form of last week’s follow-on settlement with CBS, Fox and other group broadcasters for allegedly sharing information on spot advertising. Antitrust chief Makan Delrahim said that unlawful information sharing had reduced competition for spot ads “and thereby harmed businesses that rely on competitive rates to best serve their customers.”

The FCC is under no strict timetable for completing its review. Chairman Ajit Pai is in the “marketplace has changed dramatically” camp, but his major focus has been on nonbroadcast items.

Congress must revisit the copyright legislation every five years as key provisions come up for sunset or renewal. Cable’s chances of STELAR renewal, which it has pushed, were looking pretty good at press time, though broadcasters were trying to divide and conquer by suggesting good-faith provisions could be de-tethered from the law even as the compulsory license is retained.

STELAR is the latest version of legislation, first passed in 1988, that allows satellite-TV providers to import distant network signals into local markets. The law also requires multichannel video programming distributors, including cable operators, and broadcasters to bargain in good faith in negotiations over retransmission consent for TV stations. The bargaining provisions are what has made the license renewal a flashpoint in the carriage battleground.

Broadcasters and cable operators both want this periodic fight to go away, but by very different routes. Stations want the license eliminated, while MSOs, joined by fair-use supporters often critical of cable, want it to be permanently renewed.

“Given the importance of STELAR to maintaining competition and protecting viewers, Congress should reauthorize it permanently,” Public Knowledge senior counsel John Bergmayer said. “There is no reason for Congress to create artificial crises every few years to ensure that satellite remains a competitor.”

Adding New Meanings to ‘Bad Faith’

Cable operators want to use STELAR (which has had different names at different times) to get rid of retrans blackouts, or at least to stop TV stations from pulling signals during marquee events and forbid bundled deals involving multiple stations or TV signals and other programming. Those conditions should be considered bad-faith bargaining, operators say.

“Broadcasters thumb their noses at Congress and the FCC while jacking up rates on consumers, then brag about it on their quarterly earnings calls,” said Trent Duffy of the American Television Alliance, which includes small and midsized cable operators.

Another sore point with cable operators is when TV stations program a digital subchannel as a network affiliate, allowing that station to control multiple affiliates in a market without running afoul of FCC local ownership limits that apply only to primary signals.

Addressing the subchannel issue would entail Congress beefing up the bargaining rules, since the FCC, under both Democrats and Republicans, has not gone there.

Cable operators, which generally like the government to stay out of the market, argue that tightening the rules is necessary to better level off a playing field that Congress tilted toward broadcasters by imposing the retransmission-consent and must-carry regime in the 1992 Cable Act.

The issue got plenty of new attention as the House and Senate launched hearings into STELAR in particular and the state of the video marketplace in general.

While Republicans signaled it might be OK for the law to go away, they were not of one mind.

The top Democrat on the House Energy & Commerce Committee, Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania, set a cable-friendly tone at a June 4 hearing, saying that while STELAR was not perfect, its sunset would create a “crisis” of lost viewership and invite bad behavior and consumer harm.

While cable operators told Congress that escalating retrans fees were hitting consumers hard — both by inflating their cable bills and siphoning off money that would otherwise go to building out rural broadband — broadcasters said that with big tech eating into their local ads, retrans was crucial to supporting all that local, and even life-saving, content legislators agreed was must-have video.

Given the competition for local ads from online platforms, National Association of Broadcasters president Gordon Smith said at a June 5 Senate Commerce Committee hearing that free, over-the-air stations increasingly need retransmission fees. He said the fees are fair value to support stations’ investment in must-have programming — local news, weather and emergency information that legislators conceded are, indeed, must-have.

ACA Connects president and CEO Matt Polka saw it a lot differently. He told Multichannel News, as he has been telling the Hill, that huge broadcast conglomerates would only have a more outsized influence on rising cable bills via rising retrans fees if the law went away and Congress did not put more, not fewer, good faith conditions on negotiations.

NCTA-The Internet & Television Association president Michael Powell said STELAR was all about retaining the FCC as a backstop to retrans bargaining.

In any event, Doyle signaled STELAR was not likely to be relegated to the dustbin of history just yet. He said at the House hearing that though he agreed the license and bargaining components were hardly a perfect solution, allowing them to sunset would result in a “crisis,” of lost viewership and invite bad behavior and consumer harm.

Like cable operators, legislators were remiss to let the “good-faith” directive lapse.

The STELAR license and good-faith bargaining provisions have to either stay or go by the end of the year (or close to it), so Congress has a deadline to drive those key issues to some kind of resolution.

At a panel session during the National Cable Television Co-operative’s Winter Education Conference here moderated by American Cable Association president and CEO Matt Polka, ACA senior vice president of government affairs Ross Lieberman said the organization has had some luck in the past in including some modest retrans reform in the act. STELAR comes up for renewal every five years -- the last was in 2014. In 2014, some cable-friendly changes to the act included re-upping the FCC requirement for “good-faith” negotiations and the agency’s ban on stations without common ownership banding together to negotiate retrans deals in a market.

Lieberman said that one of the ideas that has re-entered the mix is that of local choice, which would allow a broadcaster to set a price for its channel, which cable operators then can offer a la carte to their subscribers.

“If broadcasters think their channel is worth $10, we’ll find out,” Lieberman said.

Alpine Group executive vice president Ansley Erdel said that broadcasters have been lobbying hard to let STELAR expire, an effort she believes will fall flat. But she urged small operators to continue to inform their legislators of their side of the issue.

Related: NAB Launches Fight Against STELAR Renewal 

“Broadcasters all have a relationship with members of Congress,” Erdel said. “The only way they hear the other side of the story is if you tell them.”

Lieberman also underscored the importance of Federal Communications Commission moves to allocate a portion of C-band spectrum currently earmarked for video transport for 5G wireless transmission. While the industry was reluctantly OK with early plans to allocate about 100 MHz of the 500 MHz C-band for 5G, recently some have advocated 200 MHz, 300 MHz or even 400 MHz to be used for 5G. That could be devastating for small operators, he said.

Related: Charter: CBA C-Band Proposal Equals Backroom Deals, Windfall Profits

“This should concern your greatly because you are highly dependent on that spectrum to deliver video programming,” Lieberman said. “Higher prices are likely to result, the programmers are going to pay more and those prices will be passed along to you.”

He added that some legislators recognize the danger, but that there is a question as to whether that is fully resonating with all members of Congress.

Related: ACA: FCC Must Protect C-Band Incumbents 

Erdel said that while noise around net neutrality has gotten louder after the Democrats took the House of Representatives after the midterm elections, there is a growing feeling that a bipartisan solution could be worked out before the 2020 presidential election.

“There are people who recognize if the administration changes in 2020, we could start all over again,” Erdel said “There are a lot of legislators who would like to see something in place.”

STELAR, the law formerly known by a half-dozen different names, renews for five years the compulsory license that allows satellite-TV operators to import distant network signals to subscribers who can’t receive a local version. It also sunsets the Federal Communications Commission’s ban on integrated set-tops, makes several retransmission-consent reforms and reauthorizes the FCC’s ability to enforce good-faith retransmission consent negotiations.

Cable operators have traditionally used STELAR reauthorization as the vehicle to get Congress to move the FCC toward tougher rules regarding station blackouts, including making them de facto bad-faith negotiations. That’s a move both Democratic and Republican FCC chairs have been reluctant to make.

Cable Notched Wins Last Time

Last time around, cable operators did score some victories and they’ll be looking for more.

STELAR prevented coordinated retrans negotiations among non-commonly owned TV stations in a market, expanding on an earlier FCC decision to disallow coordinated efforts among the top four stations in those markets. It also prevented broadcasters from blocking the importation of significantly viewed stations into their markets.

Preston Padden, currently of the C-Band Alliance and a former top ABC and DirecTV executive who has long pushed for eliminating the blanket license, is continuing to sound that call.

“The [Rep. Steve] Scalise [R.-La.] bill gets it right — repeal both the compulsory copyright licenses and retrans, creating a world where broadcasters and programmers get paid based on market forces,” he said, adding that both would need to happen. “It would be a travesty to repeal only retrans.”

“The Satellite Home Viewer Act should be made permanent once and for all, so rural satellite consumers and retailers are on a level playing field with cable companies,” Satellite Broadcasting & Communications Association president Steven Hill told Multichannel News last fall, when the SBCA started doing the groundwork for that push. House Democrats will likely have an appetite to step in on must-carry, retransmission consent and other issues.

Rep. Anna Eshoo (DCalif.) is on the record as saying escalating retrans fees and blackouts are consumer unfriendly. But she has also taken aim at cable and satellite providers, introducing the True Fees Act, which would require multichannel video programming distributors and phone companies to be above board about below-the-line fees by telling consumers all charges in advertised prices, in part to prevent “arbitrary price hikes” on equipment fees.

One MVPD lobbyist speaking not for attribution said they expected the True Fees Act to be in play, but not expect seismic shifts in policy.

The lobbyist says to figure on Democrats trying to use STELAR to make some media ownership changes broadcasters won’t like, eliminating the UHF discount along with slightly raising the national ownership cap, for example, or tightening the restriction on ownership of the top four TV stations in a market.

The FCC loosened the restriction last year, allowing for a case-by-case review, though it still presumes such combinations were not in the public interest.

Nexstar-Tribune Review in Background

As for any major overhaul of restrans or sun-setting the license entirely, the MVPD lobbyist does not see that in the cards, despite bipartisan talk from Eshoo and Scalise that the time is ripe. “I think this year will likely play out like all years before: There will be incremental changes to the retrans laws (and very minor changes to the statutory license) to reflect the evolving marketplace as part of a five-year renewal,” the lobbyist said.

The FCC is currently reviewing what, if any, changes to make to the local ownership rules, so any STELAR-related reforms would trump that, though FCC chairman Ajit Pai might hold off on a decision this year, given that Nexstar Media Group-Tribune Media merger is pending, and wait to see what, if anything, Congress will do.

A top Democratic Hill aide agreed STELAR is unlikely to be the vehicle for major changes to either retrans or the statutory license.

Eshoo and Scalise don’t appear to be breaking any new ground and other Democratic members are rattling STELAR sabers, but that could change, they said.

Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) received broadcaster blowback last time around for proposing the Local Choice Act, which would allow MVPD subs not to pay for TV-station signals, essentially deep-sixing the retransmission-consent regime. But broadcasters fought back hard and nothing materialized. Odds are such a proposal would meet the same fate were it introduced this time around.

The National Association of Broadcasters is circulating a policy paper on Capitol Hill advocating for not renewing the STELAR law (Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act) when it expires at the end of 2019.

STELAR, which was last renewed 2014, reauthorizes the satellite compulsory distant signal license for five years. But last time around it was also a vehicle for some cable-friendly changes to retrans, including renewing the FCC's enforcement of good faith retrans negotiations and extending the commission's prohibition on coordinated retrans negotiations among noncommonly owned TV stations in a market from the top four to all stations.

NAB says it expects MVPDs to push for renewal, but contends there is no justification for compelling the out-or-market carriage to broadcast affiliate-unserved homes given that that number is dropping and in all 210 markets DISH and DirecTV are providing local-into-local TV station carriage.

As for the half-million homes that are still getting imported TV signals thanks to STELAR, NAB says they can be "better served through private business negotiations between satellite companies and local broadcasters."

NAB says the provisions set to expire--and which it argues should expire--are the "discounted" compulsory license, the retrans exemption for the imported out-of-market signals, and the good faith negotiation requirement. 

"There is no policy justification or technological reason for STELAR to be reauthorized. The time has come to stop subsidizing billion-dollar satellite TV companies and to instead provide viewers with the local news, weather and emergency information they want and need. Congress should let STELAR expire," NAB said.

“If Congress fails to re-authorize STELAR, hundreds of thousands of consumers, mostly in rural areas, would lose their broadcast channels from satellite," said Trent Duffy, spokesperson for the cable and satellite-backed American Television Alliance. "Congress should not only re-authorize STELAR so rural America can continue receiving all their broadcast channels, but also modernize the retransmission consent rules, which currently favor broadcasters at the expense of consumers and competition.”

As expected, an FCC-appointed committee on Friday presented the Commission with multiple paths toward a post-CableCARD world for retail video devices, including downloadable video security options that would allow for competitive user interfaces.

Formed in January, the Downloadable Security Technology Advisory Committee (DSTAC) provided its recommendations to the FCC a week ahead of a September 4 deadline. The DSTAC came together following the passing of the STELAR Act, legislation that will sunset the current set-top security integration ban in December 2015 and called on the FCC to take a look at a successor approach that could spur the retail market for video navigation devices for not just cable operators, but other MVPDs.

The CableCARD regime has failed miserably with respect to sparking a robust market for cable-ready retail devices. The NCTA, in its last report to the FCC on the matter, said the top nine incumbent U.S. cable operators had deployed about 53 million CableCARDs in MSO-supplied set-tops since ban on integrated security took effect in July 2007, versus 617,000 CableCARD modules that were deployed in TiVo boxes, TVs and other retail products with CableCARD slots.

For the DSTAC, the big trick is to provide recommendations that could achieve a downloadable, platform-neutral system without being “unduly burdensome” while also applying to MVPDs that use a wide range of access technologies and proprietary video security and conditional access systems.

The DSTAC report, at six pages, has yet to be released (the FCC did not announce when it would make them public), but two members of the committee – Jay Rolls, SVP and CTO of Charter Communications; and Milo Medin, VP of access services at Google, provided a summarized view of the group's findings.

While the final recommendations offer multiple paths that could be mixed and matched to achieve the goals of the initiative, Rolls said the DSTAC did find agreement on several points. For example, the group recognized that MVPD networks are diverse and varied. “We all agree that you don’t want to overhaul those networks just to accommodate a brand new security system.”

He also said the proposals also did not recommend a solution based on “common reliance,” which is a concept whereby operator-supplied equipment uses the same security system as retail devices to receive MVPD services.  “That was deemed not to be necessary,” Rolls said.

The DSTAC also agreed that its recommendations should center around IP protocol, whether delivered from the MVPD or by a product in the home, and that the MVPD must retain control of the downloadable element. “Security is a very sensitive topic and needs to be very tightly controlled,” he said.

On the security end, there were two proposals – one that relies on HTML-5 security APIs and associated encrypted media extensions  for distribution in the home and via the cloud, and a “virtual headend” approach whereby the network security and condition access is handled in the cloud with interfaces between the operator and the device using protection such as DTCP-IP.

The scope of DSTAC’s work also was not unified, as it spanned multiple  non-security and control plane components.

A proposed app-based approach would retain the MVPD’s user interface as services are made available on IP-connected retail devices such as gaming consoles, tablets and PCs. MVPDs use or plan to use various methods for that, including DLNA’s VidiPath approach that is resonating with cable operators, RVU (in use by DirecTV), and the technology Dish Network is using for its Virtual Joey app.

Another approach factors in competitive navigation/UIs that empower CE companies, such as TiVo, to create and implement their own guides. That work focused on three primary interfaces – service discovery, entitlement information (content a consumer has rights to access); and content delivery (whether it allows for live TV, on demand or cloud DVR streams, or a mix of them). The approach also factors in different DRM approaches and the transfer of metadata to deliver navigation/interfaces that consumers can digest, Medin explained.

The DSTAC suggests that the different proposals could be combined in different ways to achieve the goals of creating a vibrant market for retail video devices that can support MVPD services. 

Rolls called the DSTAC exercise “truly a team effort,” while acknowledging that the recommendations were not finalized without some lively discussion. “We weren’t clawing each other’s eyes out. It was a very civil debate,” he said.

“Engineers are very good at solving problems but the definition of the problem matters a whole lot,” Medin said.

Next steps will include the publishing of the report itself. The FCC has not said how it might act on the DSTAC proposals, and if the Commission might follow with a Notice of Inquiry or a full Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.

If the FCC moves ahead on a rulemaking, Evolution Digital, a supplier of set-tops and video software mostly to tier 2/3 MVPDs, suggested in a letter to the FCC on August 21 that the Commission should exempt small operators as such rules could be “unduly burdensome” from a financial and engineering perspective partly because it would force them to embark on IP video transitions prematurely.

Broadcasters have charged cable operators with “manufacturing” disputes over carriage of their stations to get the FCC to step in, while cable operators have said the negotiations process is broken and needs fixing.

Per language in the STELAR satellite-reauthorization bill — itself a way to accommodate some cable critics of the retransmission-consent regime without holding up that must-pass legislation last year — the FCC is gathering string on what should constitute fair, or unfair, negotiations.

NAB CALLS OUT PAY TV FIRMS

In a meeting with FCC Media Bureau chief Bill Lake — the bureau is motor-manning the retransmission review — National Association of Broadcasters executives said that while most retransmission negotiations are “seamless,” there are “some in the pay TV industry” who “appear to have developed a strategy of manufacturing retransmission consent disputes to spur the government to regulate more heavily in this arena.” The trade group did not name names.

The NAB signaled that the FCC should not be surprised if there is an “uptick” in disputes as it considers the good-faith review.

At the meeting, NAB was particularly concerned about the possibility the FCC could scrap the network nonduplication and syndicated exclusivity (syndex) rules, something the agency at least contemplated in opening an inquiry under former FCC chairman Julius Genachowski.

Those rules prevent cable operators from importing distant or out-of-market channels that air syndicated or network programming available on local stations with which cable companies are negotiating retransmission agreements. Cable operators have long considered those rules to be a thumb on the scale in favor of broadcasters.

Broadcasters have argued — and did again in the meeting with Lake — that they are a “counterweight” to the compulsory copyright license that relieves cable companies from needing to negotiate for the underlying content on a station. Retransmission involves a station’s signal, which is treated as separate from the content.

The NAB said flatly that if the FCC made it easier for MSOs to import out-of-market signals, that would lead to more disruptions. (NAB does not use the term blackout.)

In a slide show included in the meeting, the NAB put it plainly, even saying it would need to enlist its audience in the fight: “Broadcasters will be forced to hold out and engage local viewers to stop the importation of distant signals.”

Cable operators have argued that allowing MVPDs the option to import out-of-market signals could lead to lower retransmission fees, and that would benefit consumers.

The NAB had a response to the price argument: “If cable truly believes that eliminating exclusivity will help them lower rates, then the FCC should ensure that any cost savings go to consumers and not cable operators.”

ATVA MEMBERS DELIVER NUMBERS

The American Television Alliance was not about to let the NAB’s arguments go unchallenged.

ATVA members include pay TV provider and others seeking retransmission-rule changes. They were out in force for their own meeting with Lake.

In something of a full-court press, according to the ex parte filing, among those present were representatives of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, American Cable Association, US Telecom, Dish Network, Time Warner Cable and DirecTV.

They told Lake that a retransmission overhaul was necessary because the rules “are not strong enough to combat the variety of ways that a broadcaster can exercise its leverage to extract higher fees and force blackouts.”

Defining a Fair Shake

Pay TV providers in the American Television Alliance want the FCC to, at the very least, consider making the following actions evidence of bad-faith negotiations:

1. Blocking online access to their content during an impasse.

2. Bundling “cable network, non-broadcast programming, multicast programming, duplicative stations, or a significantly viewed station” in a retransmission negotiation.

3. Withholding a signal during a “top-rated marquee event,” defined as a “television program for which the most recent telecast of that event or comparable programming received a nationwide Live + Same Day U.S Rating of 7.00 or greater on the Persons 2-plus demographic by Nielsen.”

4. Preventing a pay TV provider from importing out-of-market signals during impasses.

5. Allowing a network to negotiate or have approval rights over a retransmission deal.

6. Terms such as broadcasters requiring a set-top for each set in a home or other restrictions on equipment.

7. Demanding per-subscriber payments that include non-video customers or customers getting TV stations off-air.

The FCC’s pursuit of a successor to the CableCARD continued to heat up this week as a group comprised of Google, Amazon, Public Knowledge, TiVo and others warned the Commission that putting too fine a focus on downloadable security without addressing the greater goal of furthering the competitive availability of set-tops and other navigation devices “would result in a walled-garden approach.”

Members of the group (see below for the full list) addressed their concerns in a letter to members of the FCC Media Bureau on May 11, ahead of the next scheduled meeting of the FCC-appointed Downloadable Security  Advisory Committee (DSTAC), set for this Wednesday (May 13).

The DSTAC, comprised of 18 individuals, was formed in January after the STELAR Act became law in December 2014, activating a provision that will sunset the FCC’s current ban on set-tops with integrated security after a year. The DSTAC is slated to file its recommendations to the FCC by September 4.

“The FCC Media Bureau staff’s efforts in coordinating and overseeing the DSTAC should continue to further the Congressional directives in Section 629,” the group wrote in the May 11 letter.  “In particular, any solution recommended by DSTAC should ensure that device manufacturers can differentiate retail products from MVPDs’ leased products."

On that point, they said manufacturers should be able to provide innovative and distinctive features, including unique user interfaces, enhanced search functionality, and improved means for recording and viewing content consistent with copyright law. They also said users of retail devices should be able to access the full complement of MVPD video service offerings, while also being able to pick between “premium devices with advanced functionality” as well as “simpler, lower cost devices according to their preference.”

“The DSTAC should achieve a recommendation that functionally supersedes the CableCARD, without a need for the CableCARD hardware,” they added.

A different group comprised of MVPDs, vendors and cable industry organizations, including several members of the DSTAC, issued a letter of their own last month that outlined concerns they have about the scope, direction and “policy detours” being made by a FCC-appointed committee.

That group also argued that the DSTAC was being steered into developing a method by which an MVPD’s retail offering would be “disassembled into individual piece parts” that a retail device maker could then selectively reassemble into a new configuration and service.  

They also claimed that FCC staff had proposed the DSTAC to define “non-security APIs,” to access these piece parts of the service, arguing that those proposals likewise “hark back to the ‘AllVid’ concept,” whereby pay-TV providers would need to deploy a separate adapter that would “enable a retail device to disassemble a provider’s retail subscription service for reassembly into a new service for commercial exploitation.”

The Free State Foundation echoed as much in this statement, also issued May 11, arguing that the FCC has charged the DSTAC with a task that “strays from Congress’s mandate for a report on downloadable security for next-generation devices… Requiring DSTAC to develop methods for disaggregating bundled video programming and menu contents are outside the scope of STELAR's mandate. Congress directed the FCC's Chairman to establish a working group focused on a ‘downloadable security system.’”

The group represented by Google, TiVo and Public Knowledge said the committee must dig deeper.

“Limiting the DSTAC’s scope to downloadable security alone, without reference to the committee’s broader mandate of furthering the competitive availability of navigation devices, would result in a walled-garden approach that does not promote the vigorous competition and innovation envisioned by Section 629,” they wrote.

The May 11 letter to the FCC Media Bureau’s William Lake, Brendan Murray and Nancy Murphy was signed by the following:

- Matthew Clark, Amazon (DSTAC member)

- Gary Hammer, Ceton Corp.

- Daniel O’Connor, Computer & Communications Industry

- Angela Kronenberg, Comptel

- Matt Wood , Free Press

- Milo Medin, Google (DSTAC member)

- Brad Love, Hauppauge (DTAC member)

- Abigail Slater, The Internet Association

- Joshua  Goldberg, Open Technology Institute at New America

- Adam Goldberg,  Public Knowledge (DSTAC member)

-Theodore Head, Silicondust USA

- Dr. Joseph Weber, TiVo (DSTAC member)

- Ellen Stuzman, Writers Guide of America, West  

The top nine incumbent U.S. cable operators have deployed more than 52.61 million CableCARD modules in MSO-supplied set-tops, according to the National Cable & Telecommunications Association’s latest report to the FCC.

That represents an increase of about 1.1 million from the NCTA's last report, issued in February.

By comparison, the number of CableCARDs currently deployed by those MSOs for use in retail-bought video devices such as TiVo DVRs and integrated HDTVs was just above 620,000 – roughly the same figure reported by the NCTA in February.

The NCTA has been issuing these reports since the FCC’s ban on integrated security set-tops took effect in July 2007. The passing of the STELAR Act, which became law late last year, activated a provision that will sunset the FCC’s current ban on integrated security set-tops after a year.

The FCC is now tasked with pursuing a successor to the CableCARD that will focus on downloadable security systems that could be applied to cable operators as well as other MVPDs, including telcos and satellite TV providers.

To help with that pursuit, the FCC in January appointed the Downloadable Security Technology Advisory Committee (DSTAC), which must file a report with the Commission detailing its findings by Sept. 4, 2015. The next DSTAC meeting is scheduled to take place Wednesday, May 13, at 10 a.m. ET.

In April, a group that includes several MVPDs, the NCTA, American Cable Association, and CableLabs, have voiced concerns about the scope and direction of the FCC-appointed committee.

The FCC’s pursuit of a successor to the CableCARD (pictured) is morphing into a tension-filled affair as a group comprised of MVPDs, vendors and industry organizations issued a lengthy letter outlining concerns they have about the scope, direction and “policy detours” being made by a Commission-appointed committee that is tasked with providing recommendations that will aid the FCC’s pursuit of a new downloadable video security system that would apply to cable operators, telcos and satellite TV service providers and endeavor to spark a vibrant retail market for set-tops and other video devices.

Meanwhile, TiVo, which is on the committee and a company that has a big stake in the outcome, issued a statement of its own, calling the letter an “inappropriate attempt by incumbents to pre-judge the outcome of the technical working group and infect the process with non-technical policy arguments that have been addressed in prior FCC proceedings.”

The DSTAC, comprised of 18 individuals, was formed in Januaryafter the STELAR Act became law in December 2014, activating a provision that will sunset the FCC’s current ban on set-tops with integrated security after a year. The DSTAC is slated to file its recommendations to the FCC by September 4. The next DSTAC meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, April 21.

The letter -- dated April 10 and addressed to Cheryl Tritt of Wilkinson, Barker, Knauer, the chair of the Downloadable Security Advisory Committee (DSTAC) -- complained that the committee “is veering into areas that are well outside its statutorily-defined charter,” and being “diverted toward proposals that would hinder the ability of consumers to access MVPD and online video services on their growing number of devices.”

The letter argues that the DSTAC is being steered into developing a method by which an MVPD’s retail offering would be “disassembled into individual piece parts” that a retail device maker could then selectively reassemble into a new configuration and service.

“From the very first meeting, working group deliberations were nearly derailed by a staff directive that the DSTAC “committee shall develop” a means to disaggregate service even if participants believe that those features should not be mandatory,” the letter claimed.

They are also concerned about how the DSTAC discussions are emphasizing a new “box” that would conceivably disassemble MVPD service into outputs that a device maker could rearrange, combine and overlay with its own UI.

They also claim that FCC staff has proposed the DSTAC to define “non-security APIs,” to access these piece parts of the service, that, in the group’s estimation “is beyond the DSTAC’s well-defined ‘downloadable security’ mission” that could “raise significant contract and copyright issues.”

Those proposals, they argued, “hark back to the ‘AllVid’ concept,” whereby pay-TV providers would need to deploy a separate adapter that would “enable a retail device to disassemble a provider’s retail subscription service for reassembly into a new service for commercial exploitation.” Further, they believe a new AllVid-like approach would preclude many consumers from receiving MVPD and online video services directly via secure downloadable IP apps on devices such as smartphones, tablets, and gaming consoles. The FCC initially asked for feedback on the AllVid idea in 2010, but has not acted on the proposal. Amid growing concerns about the notion of a “black box,” the Commission directed the DSTAC at the March 30 meeting not to focus on implementations yet, but to instead sort out the technical requirements. 

“Resurrecting AllVid variants here is already needlessly bogging the DSTAC’s deliberations in controversy…” the group wrote, urging that the committee avoid such “policy detours” as the group builds its recommendations.

The group also railed against some interest in directing the DSTAC to use CableCARD as “starting point” for its work, despite the fact that distributors such as Dish Network, DirecTV and telcos that rely on IPTV, such as AT&T, never used the security module, and that the market is migrating to video apps that work independent of the CableCARD.

TiVo, meanwhile, said the letter “ignores the statutory reference to a ‘platform neutral’ solution and omits the statute’s reference to Section 629 as the underlying purpose of the working group which is to create a competitive retail navigation device market.”

TiVo added that the MVPDs involved in the letter (see below for more detail) are “trying to use the technical working group to try to turn back the clock and limit retail devices only to carrying MVPD apps,” holding that it would also extend their control over the interface, and prohibit retail devices from providing "fair use" competitive functionality such as DVR, side loading, and out of home streaming.

Matthew Zinn, TiVo’s SVP, general counsel and chief privacy officer, said the process has not yet reached the policy-making stage, so the group should instead focus on identifying possible technical solutions.

As for some of the issues addressed in the letter, he said TiVo has been able to apply its own UI while supporting the underlying copyright issues.

UPDATE: As for the disaggregation concerns addressed in the letter, TiVo also disagrees with assertions that elements such as weather apps and caller ID to the TV should be included in the definition of the cable service. Zinn said the FCC’s definition of cable service in this instance is all about programming, and shouldn’t be part of the DSTAC discussion, anyway.

“Those are issues that shouldn’t be debated in a technology advisory group,” he said. “They can be policy and regulatory issues that can be debated at a later time.  

The letter to Tritt (and copied to all DSTAC members) was signed by the following:

- American Cable Association, Patrick Murphy and Jason Hansen

- ARRIS Group,  Bruce McClelland (DSTAC member)

- AT&T, Dr. Ahmad Ansari (DSTAC member)

- Bright House Networks, Jeff Chen

- Cable Television Laboratories, Ralph Brown

- Cablevision Systems Corporation, Bob Clyne (DSTAC member)

- Charter Communications, Jay Rolls (DSTAC member)

- Cisco Systems, Edmond Shapiro

- Comcast, Mark Hess (DSTAC member)

- Cox Communications, Steve Watkins

- DirecTV, Steve Dulac

- Dish Network, John Card II (DSTAC member)

- Evolution Digital,Brent Smith (DSTAC member)

- Motion Picture Association of America, John McCoskey (DSTAC member)

- National Cable & Telecommunications Association, Andy Scott

- Time Warner Cable, Kevin Leddy

- Verimatrix, Petr Peterka

- Verizon Communications, David Young

Other members of the DSTAC include Brant Candelore of Sony; Matthew Clark of Amazon; Adam Goldberg, Public Knowledge;  Brad Love, Hauppauge; Kenneth Lowe, Vizio; Milo Medin, Google; Alan Messer, Samsung; Simha Sethumadhavan, Columbia University; Dr. Joseph Weber, TiVo; and Robin Wilson, Nagra.

For past coverage on the DSTAC, please see:

-CableCARD Successor Inches Ahead

-FCC Group Starts To Seek CableCARD's Successor

-‘Black Box’ Talk Dominates FCC’s First DSTAC Meeting

The first meeting of an FCC-appointed committee that will explore a potential successor to the CableCARD got underway Monday (February 23), with much of the discussion centering on the notion of an all-MVPD “black box” and whether OTT video service providers should be included within the scope of the discussion.

That group, called the Downloadable Security Technology Advisory Committee (DSTAC), is comprised of 18 members and includes execs from Dish Network, Cablevision Systems, Charter Communications, Comcast, Amazon, Google, TiVo and Evolution Digital.  The committee was formed after the passing of the STELAR Act in December 2014, which will sunset the current integration ban this December and calls on the FCC to pursue a downloadable alternative. The DSTAC is tasked with filing a report of its findings and recommendations to the FCC by September 4.

Monday’s meeting has so far focused on the scope of the report, including which types of navigation devices and the types of content and services – including linear TV and on-demand video -- should fit inside it.

The notion of a “black box” outfitted with downloadable security dominated the early discussion, though what exactly that will entail is not yet clearly defined. But the general idea for it seems to be focused on a virtual module of sorts or a chip that can support the baseline input and output requirements of pay-TV operators. That could end up spanning elements such as service discovery, channel tuning/content requests, emergency alert system information, closed captioning data, copy control information, subscriber authentication/provisioning, and the audio and video streams themselves.

What technical shape that black box takes is an early part of the debate. Joe Weber, CTO for TiVo’s Service Provider Business Unit, for example, warned that it would not be feasible for there to be a separate box that sits between it and the retail device from a wide range of MVPDs. 

Alan Messer, VP, advanced technology for Samsung’s Advanced Technology Lab, also raised concerns about this black box taking the form of a new chip, noting that it could significantly raise the bill of material (BOM) costs for TVs, DVRs and other retail video devices. Such a chip "might not be the right mindset,” he argued. 

Also up for debate is whether OTT services should be considered in the coming report, even as the FCC moves ahead with a new rulemaking effort that will look define some online video providers (OVDs) as MVPDS, at least with respect to access to cable and broadcast TV programming.

Mark Hess, SVP, office of the CTO, business and industry affairs at Comcast Cable,  suggested that it will be difficult to exclude OTT from the discussion in a meaningful way given the current state of the video marketplace.

“It is an error to ignore it,” agreed Kenneth Lowe, VP and co-founder of Vizio.

The order, adopted Feb. 13 but not released until this week, takes a number of other steps.

STELAR is the bill that, primarily, reauthorizes the distant signal compulsory license, but includes some other FCC authorities that needed renewing, plus a few additions from Congress in its most recent reauthorization of the license, including sunsetting the FCC ban on integrated set-tops.

The FCC order extends the FCC's authority to enforce good-faith retrans negotiations until Dec. 31, 2015; prohibits a TV station from preventing an MVPD from carrying significantly viewed signals, and eliminates the prohibition on MVPDs dropping TV station signals during sweeps periods.

To allow MVPDs to import significantly viewed stations, the FCC added this new subsection to its retrans rules:

"[To] prohibit a television broadcast station from limiting the ability of a [MVPD] to carry into the local market of such station a television signal that has been deemed significantly viewed...or any television broadcast signal such distributor is authorized to carry, unless such stations are directly or indirectly under common de jure control permitted by the Commission."

Since the FCC is just complying with statutory updates and modifications that allow it no administrative discretion, it made the changes without notice or comment.

Beyond Broadband Technology (BBT), the cable consortium that has developed a downloadable security platform for set-tops and other video devices, wasn’t asked to participate on an FCC-appointed committee that will start the pursuit of a successor the CableCARD, but it still wants its voice to be heard.

In a letter to that group – called the Downloadable Security Technology Advisory Committee – on Friday (February 13), BBT CEO and CTO Bill Bauer proposed to give the DSTAC or any relevant sub-committee a “full technical briefing” so they can weigh and explore “the unique aspects and challenges in the development of a true ‘technology and platform neutral’ security system such as BBT's…”

BBT, which works primarily with small cable operators, sought but failed to secure spot on the DSTAC, which will hold its first meeting next Tuesday (February 17). The FCC recently appointed a group of 18 execs and specialists from companies and organizations that include Comcast, Public Knowledge, AT&T, TiVo, Amazon, Evolution Digital and the Motion Picture Association of America.

The DSTAC was formed soon after the STELAR Act became law on Dec. 5, 2014, activating a provision that will sunset the FCC’s current ban on set-tops with integrated security after a year. The DSTAC will help the FCC to identify and recommend  a “platform-neutral software-based downloadable security system”  aimed at promoting competitive availability of navigation devices – something that the CableCARD failed to do. The DSTAC must file a report with the Commission by September 4, 2015.

The BBT and the American Cable Association, meanwhile, have argued that the makeup of the committee underrepresents the interests of smaller, independent MVPDs.

Holding that no members of the current DSTAC committee have been fully briefed on the technical and security details of BBT’s technology, Bauer said the organization would be willing to share those security details “under appropriate safeguards, which are consistent with the Federal Advisory Committee Act.”

Among the points made by Bauer in the letter, he stressed that any recommended technology should work with both one- and two-way transport platforms, since “at least a third or more” of the current MVPD universe delivers serves on unidirectional plant, and any selected approach should likewise be backwards compatible with legacy systems.

Update: To clarify that, BBT noted that the one-way issue involves not just the residual of older, smaller DBS systems, but also DBS and the possible addition of video platforms of digital broadcast channels. 

Bauer also identified what he sees as the “most difficult hurdle” for any cross-industry standard for software-downloadable security – the current prevalence of proprietary public/private key security schemes and the tricky aspects of indemnification – i.e. who’s on the hook if the system is cracked.

“An additional major stumbling block is the associated almost impossible expectation of indemnity,” Bauer wrote. “These intractable issues can be ameliorated by development of a system that does not require a ‘trusted authority’ and allows fully individualized, user controlled software data encryption and conditional access downloadability.”

Arguing that the notion of “unbreakable” security is pure fantasy, Bauer also suggested that the DSTAC should favor technologies that are “nimble and recoverable” and support a design that keeps the “threat targets” small, versus one that would face industry- or nationwide vulnerabilities.

They had reason to be upbeat. The bill that passed the House and Senate two weeks ago with nary a discouraging word — the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act Reauthorization, or STELAR — included some retransmission-consent changes and scrapped the ban on set-tops with integrated conditional access, giving cable operators several victories.

LESS-HEATED PROCESS

Last time around, the reauthorization process was far more contentious, and led to a months-long delay in renewing the compulsory license, a must-pass piece of legislation that grants satellite-TV providers the right to deliver distant-network signals to viewers who can’t receive a sufficiently strong over-the-air signal in their own market, with a bill that avoided retransmission-consent issues.

Cable operators had been hoping for a long-shot provision introduced in the Senate that would have essentially eviscerated retransmission consent, turning it into a direct negotiation between broadcasters and pay TV customers. But that was a bridge too far and would have likely created the same kind of impasses as in 2009.

Preventing blackouts during disputes had also been on the table, but was among various provisions that had to be dropped in order to secure bipartisan support.

But look for the “local choice” provision to resurface next year as the House prepares to weigh in on a Telecommunications Act revamp and one of its Senate co-sponsors, Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), takes over as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee.

The bill’s passage in both houses was being hailed as an example of the kind of bipartisan lawmaking that has been in short supply.

While the pay TV-backed American Television Alliance and the National Cable & Telecommunications Association praised passage and urged President Obama to sign the legislation into law, the National Association of Broadcasters and the broadcaster-backed group TVFreedom were silent on the bill. Spokespeople for both of the latter said their groups were “neutral.”

Broadcast lobbyists speaking not for attribution put the best face on the bill, pointing out the absence of the retransmission-eviscerating portions and blackout prohibitions.

Then there were the six extra months that stations will get to unwind joint sales agreements that the FCC this year made attributable as ownership interests.

BOX BAN NIXED

Eliminating the set-top ban had been one of the NCTA’s big asks, and appeared at one point to be in some trouble, given the opposition of Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) in particular. Markey had blocked passage of a Senate version of the bill, but he relented.

Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler promised to get to work ASAP on finding a successor to the CableCard hardware fix for promoting a retail market in boxes, something the integration ban failed notably to achieve. The integration ban won’t sunset for a year, an effort to accommodate Markey and other supporters.

Broadcasters had reason not to exactly be celebrating, given that the bill extended the prohibition on coordinated retransmission talks among the top four stations in a market to all non-commonly owned stations. That was a change that the American Cable Association had been pushing for and requires the FCC to look at what should be defined as good-faith negotiations.

STELAR at a Glance

Key provisions in the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act Reauthorization:

► Extends satellite compulsory license to Jan. 1, 2020;

► Allows the FCC to modify markets to better deliver local news or in-state programming, unless it is technically or economically infeasible for the satellite carrier to do so;

► Authorizes MVPDs to import significantly viewed stations;

► Requires the FCC to launch a rulemaking within nine months to review its “totality of circumstances” text for good-faith negotiations;

► Gives TV station owners six more months to come into compliance with new rules making some joint sales agreements attributable as ownership interest;

► Gives cable operators the ability to drop TV station signals during sweeps periods;

► Eliminates the set-top integration ban one year after enactment of the Act and extends all waivers of the ban through Dec. 31, 2015. It also requires the FCC to launch a working group to come up with a successor to the Cable- Card method of separating channel-surfing and security functions.

— John Eggerton

It also renews the FCC's authority to enforce good faith retransmission-consent negotiations, with a mandate to the FCC to study the definition of good faith, as well as extending the commission's prohibition on coordinated retrans negotiations among noncommonly owned TV stations in a market from the top four to all stations.

The President's John Hancock was applauded by House Energy & Commerce Committee chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Communications Subcommittee chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.), who helped motorman the ultimately birpartisan bill, which does the following through the House.

“Hearing that our bipartisan work is now law is stellar news. With a stroke of the president’s pen today, over a million satellite subscribers will continue receiving their favorite broadcast content uninterrupted,” said Upton in a statement. “Bipartisan legislating has been the cornerstone of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and I look forward to continuing that tradition as we work toward a #CommActUpdate.” That is a reference to the planned rewrite of the 1996 Telecommunications Act Upton and Walden launched in the current Congress.

“It was important that Congress came together and got its work done on time," said Walden. "After nearly a year-long process, I am proud to say that the bipartisan STELA Reauthorization Act signed by President Obama today is a job well done. This law ensures continuity of service for rural satellite subscribers and helps bring the laws governing our video marketplace onto the same playing field. While there is still plenty of work ahead as we bring our communications laws into the 21st century, this is an important milestone. Consumers are well served by this legislation, and I am ready to continue our work on these important issues next Congress.”

Senate passage was assured after chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W. Va.) signaled various issues would get separate vetting--cable rates, set-top box competition, issues he also had concerns with--but made it clear a bill that could actually pass by the end of the year needed to be produced. Rockefeller is retiring at the end of this term, so the bipartisan bill is a also a victory for the outgoing Senate Commerce Committee chairman.

The license expires every five years, but last time around contentious fights over various add-ons pushed passage beyond the expiration date of Dec. 31, 2009 and deep into the following year, where legislators had to ask content owners to act as if the license had passed and it would be made retroactive, which it was.

“CenturyLink applauds Congress and the President for reauthorizing legislation that will increase investment, innovation, competition and consumer choice in the pay-TV market,” said vice president for federal legislative affairs David Bartlett. “STELAR goes a long way toward making retransmission consent negotiations more fair and balanced, and creates a more competitive pay-TV market for providers and consumers alike, but more video reform is needed.”