Rainbow/PUSH founder Jesse Jackson, no fan of the FCC's set-top proposal, pulled no punches in a USA Today online op ed Monday afternoon, evoking images of snarling dogs and fire hoses in taking aim at a commission he likened to a recalcitrant southern governor.
He said the FCC proposal to regulate set-top boxes—the proposal is to require MVPDs to make set-top data and content available to third-party devices and apps to wed with online video offerings—is a "deep threat," especially to smaller, independent and diverse networks and programmers, who often lack the deep pocket resources to weather this type of transition."
There are diverse programmers on both sides of the issue, with generally more established nets like TV One and BET opposed to the new regs as a threat to their business models, while some over-the-top programmers argue it will be a way for them to get noticed and draw eyeballs in a media marketplace dominated and controlled by larger players.
Jackson was clearly siding with the TV One camp argument, including citing TV One's Alfred Liggins' comment that the FCC proposal was “a new form of 'redlining' that could bury diversity programming.”
Jackson had his own harsh assessment. "The FCC cannot be, on this issue, as woodenly unreflective as a Southern governor ignoring the community that he was supposed to serve."
Jackson echoed Congressional Black Caucus leaders in suggesting the FCC pause the process until studies on the impact of the proposal on diverse programming have been concluded and to "listen to those who have fought this battle for equality over the decades and in other contexts."
