The Future of Web Video At Stake In Comcast-NBC Regulatory Review

Phoghat writes with this excerpt from the Washington Post: "It won't be long before video from the Internet is always within reach — whether it's on a smart phone, a tablet computer or a high-end television in your living room. But what if there's nothing worth watching? ... Regulators are pushing for tough conditions to ensure that Comcast can't stifle online video services by withholding content or pushing up prices for marquee NBC programs at a time viewers are starting to turn to the Internet for recent movies or the latest episodes of 'Saturday Night Live,' '30 Rock' and other popular TV shows. The concessions they extract from Comcast in its bid for NBC will help determine whether customers can someday realistically drop their cable subscriptions and go online-only for their TV. ... Comcast has been resisting federal regulators' efforts to tear down some of those walls, arguing that those efforts are unnecessary because NBC Universal accounts for about 10 percent of television viewing in the US and less than 10 percent of US box office revenue — and is therefore too small to dictate how the industry will develop."

Comments

Regulators taking a Pro-active Role

[findlawyerdirect]

Its good to see regulators taking a pro-active role than a reactive one.

Re:Regulators taking a Pro-active Role

[beakerMeep]

If by proactive you mean re-branding "managed services" as net neutrality and patting themselves on the back -- meanwhile blessing ISP throttling, and mobile throttling, thus protecting corporate profit in an industry with already insanely high profit margins, at the expensive of the consumer and innovative companies like netflix... then, uh, yeah.

The FCC needs to wake the hell up and realize they aren't protecting competition in a nascent market but rather protecting the government granted monopolies which stifle innovation and are the very reason the market is still "nascent." This is why the US is so far behind in broadband.

Personally I suspect a lot of the news coming out now is orchestrated PR for the policy vote coming on the 21st. I think the FCC is putting out a lot of "we're fighting for the little guy" stories to soften the blow of toothless net neutrality policy that relies on the goodwill of ISPs to act "reasonably" and "transparently"

Flawed Assumption

[retech]

"But what if there's nothing worth watching?"
I did not realize the networks had anything worth watching right now.

Re:Screw this

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck you and your BBC exclusion to the United States.

Sincerely,
Americans tired of American media

This seems really important

[podom]

Hey, I've got an idea. How about we stop acting like ready access to TV shows and movies is an inalienable right? Or like we're being repressed as a people when movie and TV studios make watching their content more difficult or comcast decides to limit access to the latest episode of your favorite show?