According to sources, a majority of the FCC—all Democrats—has voted to approve the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would define some over-the-top (OTT) video providers as multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs), at a minimum to qualify for nondiscriminatory access to programming.
The three Democrats—chairman Tom Wheeler and commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Mignon Clyburn—give the item the needed votes to pass, though the Republicans are still being given time to provide edits. The item was circulated for a vote and once it achieved that three-vote quorum is now in a must-vote situation, meaning the Republicans are on the clock and must vote it soon or it will be adopted without them, since it already has the votes to pass.
One of the Republican offices asked for and received an extension until Dec. 10 to vote, but that is not a hard deadline and there could be another extension as the edits are still being vetted.
For the full story go to Multichannel.com.
