FCC Boss Opposes Broadcasters on Digital Multicast

[NVMojo]

Look at what Powell was just working on ....Do I smell the corporate media moguls lurking around, licking their chops?? I didn't particularly care for Powell but I think there are some interesting things going on ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell has proposed rejecting a request that cable companies be required to carry all the digital signals offered by a broadcast television station, sources close to the matter said on Wednesday.

Current law permits a television broadcaster to have its primary signal carried on cable, but with the advent of digital signals broadcasters can now offer multiple channels, known as multicasting. Some had requested that cable be required to carry those additional streams.

In 2001, the FCC ruled that cable had to carry the digital television signal but it only had to carry one video stream of the broadcaster's choosing. Paxson Communications Corp. and others petitioned the agency to reconsider.

Powell has circulated a proposal that would uphold that decision and has scheduled to complete the voting at the FCC's next open meeting, slated for Feb. 10, two sources said, declining further identification.

more....

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=industryNews&storyID=7375385

[UL_Approved]

1. Why wouldn't digital cable carry these streams anyway?

I'm not sure that all is being revealed here. The lobby to change this is pretty adamant. They have something up their sleeve...

[high density]

2. Overall, I dislike digital multicasting.

Digital TV is already compressed too much without having every station wasting precious bandwidth by broadcasting two infomercial subchannels that nobody wants to watch. Forcing the cable companies to carry these channels would only stimulate this greedy behavior as the video quality of primary content we want to watch would go down the tubes. The only good multicasting example I've heard of is ABC's News Now channel.