NAB Show: O'Rielly Slams FCC's 'Black Box' Proposal

Michael O'Rielly

Republican FCC Commissioner Michael O'Rielly took aim at the FCC's proposal to unlock cable set-top boxes, saying the FCC was redefining terms in an effort to "to use government to artificially cheapen the value of video content."

"In a speech at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas, O'Rielly said calling it a set-top box proposal was a misnomer and that it was actually all about the FCC "taking a 90’s regime and redefining all of its terms to let the Commission get its hooks into all of the new technology that has developed since then, outside of the Commission’s authority."

According to Multi-Channel News, O'Rielly, who voted against the proposal, also took aim at the FCC's media campaign promoting the proposal, including its #unlockthebox hashtag.

O'Rielly was speaking before a panel session, "Unlocking Pandora’s Box? A Closer Look At What’s At Stake in the FCC’s Proposal to Open Up Pay TV’s Set Top Boxes." But he said he had his own metaphor for the proposal.

He called it a "black box, a giant question mark from the perspective of "broadcasters, MVPDs, and consumers alike."

Broadcasters are concerned, as are other programmers, about how their content could be repackaged and/or monetized on the third party devices that would be given access to MVPD programming streams.