Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) will get together with BET chairman Debra Lee, TV One chairman Alfred Liggins and Victor Cerda, senior VP of Vme TV, on Capitol Hill Thursday to air their concerns about the FCC's new set-top box proposal. Clarke will also unveil a new Multicultural Media Caucus.
Clarke, for one, has called for the FCC to hit pause to allow studies of the impact of the proposal—which mandates that MVPDs share program and data streams with third party navigation devices and apps—on multicultural media outlets. Liggins has been outspoken in his opposition to the new rules.
In announcing the press conference, Clarke's office pointed to warnings that the set-top proposal would have a "devastating" impact on small, independent and diverse programmers.
Mignon Clyburn, the first black woman to chair the FCC, told an INTX audience Tuesday that the FCC needed to "pause" and thoroughly vet the impact of its complicated proposal.
