ACA To FCC: OVDs Are Not MVPDs

In a filing to the Federal Communications Commission’s Media Bureau, the American Cable Association (ACA) said that “continuing to refrain from classifying pure-play online video distributors (OVDs) as Multichannel Video Programming Distributors (MVPDs) is in accord with the intent, language and structure of the law, and with longstanding congressional and agency precedent that carefully separated the burgeoning online world from traditional forms of media regulation applied to facilities-based operators.”
 
“Giving OVDs the same regulatory status as cable operators under the law would be an unreasonable interpretation of the law,” comments ACA President/CEO Matthew M. Polka. “Far-reaching and disruptive consequences would result from imposing MVPD status on OVDs, because regulatory requirements crafted with wholly different business models and network configurations would apply by their terms to OVDs.”
 
The comments were submitted in response to a public notice released by the Media Bureau seeking input on legal, regulatory and practical consequences of reinterpreting the definition of MVPD to include such OVDs as Netflix, Hulu and YouTube.
 
According to the ACA, “the best interpretation of the term MVPD was provided by the Media Bureau itself – namely, that an MVPD is an entity that makes available to subscribers a transmission path over which it provides multiple channels of video programming.” 
 
To the extent the FCC believes OVDs are MVPDs, ACA urged the agency to conduct an industrywide rulemaking “that would give all stakeholders an opportunity to assess the impact of the FCC’s choice to disturb the regulatory status quo.”