Transcripts For CSPAN Discussion On The Future Of Television 20150517

Its hard to believe it was 20 years ago in the fall of 1995 that an fcc Advisory Committee made recommendations to the commission for the worlds first alldigital Television Transmission system. And many of you were involved in that epic process. But we all know that time and Technology March on. Today we stand on the dawn of a fully new system, one that promises even more flexible standard also alter High Definition television, and really a marriage between video and the internet. With all this in mind, we ought to turn now and sample the unique perspectives of our super panelists, television system, and industry luminaries. Because they are so well known and mark has almost already introduced them, i will do it briefly. In immediate left is michael powell, the president and ceo of the National Association of National Cable you have to use that word cable. Cable and telecommunications association. And former fcc chairman. Then we have gordon smith who is the president and ceo of the National Association of broadcasters and a former United States senator, and jerry shapiro, Consumer Electronics Association President ceo and a New York Times best selling author. I have prepared a number of challenging inquiries for our luminaries. Let me begin with a general inquiry to each. What is your vision . Gordon we will start with you. For the future of television and the role your industry is going to play in the future. Thank you dick, and my colleagues here. Thank you for your leadership over many years. And for being a part of this next phase. I see the future of video and Television Broadcasting in particular is remaining bright as long as localism, lives, journalism, consumer protections, emergency alerts, as long as those are important parts of Public Policy, i think broadcast television plays the indispensable role. Michael . Michael television will be dramatically different. Its going to be much more multidimensional as a Consumer Experience than it is today. I think consumers are clearly delighting in a range of Consumer Electronics devices that provide screens that provide televisionlike experiences across a myriad of platforms that never existed before. I think that will continue to proliferate as a legacy of steve jobs begins to continue to create magical devices on which quality video can be distributed. I think the nature of content is going to continue to radically expand. The old adage that life is stranger than fiction is true. A massive amount of consumption will take lays merely in the video documentation of reallife. Many many consumers are spending a portion of their video consumption day watching each other. For why, i am not sure. But they do. We have to acknowledge that. That creates a kind of Community Intensity and Television Watching that is relatively unique. Less about eyeballs, more about commonly shared passions around a piece of content. I think we will see that. I think we will see other expansions in form, longer form bench watching, shorter form, clips, and each of those will be optimized on different platform and devices. I think we will have a monetization model the will have to transform. Advertising will demand the kind of metadata specifics that internet functionality plays. The cable industry being the leading provider of highspeed internet in the country is going to play a Critical Role in the way the internet evolved, and as it serves as a platform for a lot of that expansion to take place, not to mention it will continue to be a home for content that is most highly optimized on that kind of proprietary platform, either because of its expense in being produced because of its critical need for proprietary heavily quality managed experiences that the internet sometimes has trouble delivering. How about you jerry . Jerry i should have negotiated that i do not follow michael powell. [laughter] what you have done for hdtv, an extreme example of leadership that is made a difference for our country and the world. Most americans, 85 of americans have an hdtv set and they like them. Im very proud of that segment in my life. My tombstone will be 16 by nine aspect ratio. [laughter] it has been terrific. I am shocked that i was invited back. I spoke here several years ago. I am not mitt romney. Im willing to apologize when i was wrong. I am wrong. [laughter] in terms of where we going, we are going over the top is coming really fast and it is hitting. We are going to i. T. Video very quickly and different forms. We have the prior people, your predecessors 11 years ago. I went back and looked at what we said. The whole thing was a focus about how we get to the hdtv transition. You are getting an award and use its some really prissy and things as well. I listen to what you say prescient and things as well. I listen to what you say. What chairman powell spoke about, its not justly just about the tablets. The things you put in your wrist. Theres virtualreality coming. We are starting to feel the beginning of a lot of these transitions. There are new technologies in the video. Some of which you are aware lcd and things like that. Other things have either not been invented or they are in research labs. Its not just about apple. There are a lot of great companies, like samsung and lg and panasonic, that are doing great things. Theres a lot of expansion in the video space and reason for growth. The next several years it is all about ultra hd 4k, which is had a phenomenally successful run. I hear about the sets going off the shelves. The numbers are truly astounding. I am happy to talk more about it. Because we are working in washington, d. C. I suppose the obligatory question will have to be, what can the government do to help or hinder your industry . Feel free if you want to lay out any concerns you have about the government regulatory issues in that regard. When you are in a period that is marked by explosive innovation, that period also involves explosive experimentation. Regulation is at its best when markets are mature and well understood. They are at their worst when there is a fomenting fire of change and experimenting. I would look for a category of having the commission be committed to incentives that align with that experimentation paradigm and the importance of not letting there be arbitrary or premature reflexive reactions to experimentation in flexibility of packaging, new business models, new rules for interactive or consumers, the rule data will play, because all of those things will always have an element of something you might be a little worried about. But if you act on it prematurely, you will distract the market by the consumer. The disincentives you mentioned are just the opposite. Doing things you hope they dont do. I hope at some point the combination of the fcc and Congress Just has to confront the reality they have a myriad of laws based on market and technological predicates that are utterly and completely false. Not even kind of false, but clearly demonstratively false. Richard such as . Michael Program Access is premised on the cable industry is the only source of distribution of video content and the idea that Cable Companies vertically own most programming that consumers watch. The reality is, when that law was passed, Cable Companies owned about 54 of the content carried out on the system. Today, that is down to 11 and if you took out comcast, it would collapse almost entirely. Yet the rules still exists. Yet there is directv and dish which are larger Distribution Companies and cable yet they are not subject to the same set of rules. Theres a lot of inequity in the Regulatory Environment because the market grew up on the rules and nobody has tried to go back and address the efficacy of the rules. Its not about whether you win or lose. The government owes you accuracy and a Regulatory Regime that is honestly reflective of the actuality of the market and not the way it was 20 plus years ago. Richard gordon, speaking for the industry with the heaviest Regulatory Burden, how do you see this question . Gary i was going to suggest to michael that i have some i would like to give him if he would like. Michael youve been trying. [laughter] gordon obviously, the elephant in our room is our havey Regulatory Burden and the upcoming auction. Our hope that the fcc will have a successful forward and reverse auction that protects our contours and is mindful of interference. I think there are just so many things that could go wrong with the option with the auction unrelated to the lawsuit we currently have which we try to expedite because we like the function in the rearview mirror. I was on the Commerce Committee when we went from analog to digital and i remember how difficult that was and how by comparison, that transition was like kindergarten recess compared to the complexity of the upcoming auction and potential for disruption that poses. But i can name ownership rules and regulation and i could go down a long list. The fcc has not cap pace with the requirement to look at across ownership issues. We are capped as no one else small and that presents its own sets of challenges. I would hope the fcc would see the enduring value of localism and that it is a video future for all the American People and not just those who can afford pay video. The world we grew up in and the world we should bequeath to our children is one which irrespective of your income, you should be able to have local news, weather, sports, emergency alerts, which so often are the lifeline to rescue. Those but to always be kept in the forefront of the fcc keeping a dedicated band for broadcasting. Between the analog transition to looking forward to the auction coming up in 2016, broadcasting will have relinquished two thirds of its spectrum and there is just simply a limit. If we are going to keep broadcasting in the important place it occupies in telecommunication. Richard we are going to follow through on some of those issues a little later. Gary, how about you . Gary i will sit back and say the competitive strength of our nations innovation and innovation is what we are great at. You have to go to the government and ask permission before you do Something Different and thats slowing you down. Government plays a valuable role and the transmission system. That was the primary role and we agree that we would recommend something at the ftc and that worked out great. But there is a limited amount of space. So much of what we do is based there. Theres a debate about rich versus poor and some of it is the resentment that somehow people get government monopolies and special treatment and make a ton of money and we have a lot of these regulatory things were created so long ago. The way we view it is we want to see a healthy broadcast and healthy cable. We want competition with every type of broadband provider. If there is competition, a lot of the knees go away and eventually our policymakers will get this. What can we do to foster this tremendous competition and broadband . One thing the fcc has not done right in my view is that have they have claimed authority over you just swap of the internet in a way nobody ever anticipated in the 96 act this is your authority, we want open internet, and this is a good thing. Rather than the fcc saying we can do anything we want and could be requiring weight you come to us which is not a healthy thing for our country. Richard we are here at atsc and i think we should talk about what hopes and concerns you have for a possible new standard. Either way, congratulations on the private sector role you played on atf see atfc. Gary this is an elegant standard that does a lot of great things. They are willing to introduce and try things and if there is not support in the market lays, you will see that dry up. If the broadcast industry gets behind it, it will succeed and it can be the last opportunity to expand market share. Going back 11 years and reading about your predecessor, talking about how hdtv is the last chance for broadcasters to step up. We worked so hard on it and it we thought the broadcast entered was the endall beall when we started the process most of the country relied on over the air antenna. Most of the country does not rely on over the air and on casters darted out fast but got slow compared to satellite fiber and others. It can come back with atsc 3. 0. They have created a standard for this. Netflix is already streaming but the trendline is there. Americans want goodlooking pictures. The number of americans with sets over 40 inches is really high. That was not true when we were doing the transition. The Research Also shows the content is very important. Even without content, its an experience of people buying it anyhow. Richard after two decades of development, we went through a transition just six years ago, a nationwide transition to digital television. Do you foresee this time around that theyre going to have another nationwide transition . Perhaps market i market and if so, how will that work out . Gordon let me surprise you and say i agree with what gary just that and probably to the image probably to the irritation of my members. I believe 3. 0 is necessary to have the flexibility and incentive to do new things with less spectrum. I believe it is actually critical, even if you are a broadband provider like michael or the telephone company. I dont think there is an of spectrum to do all video, why broadband . It will always be an expensive experience and i believe it is important for more than just a great new picture. It is important for mobility and that becomes critical. If you have a mobile device, you can actually get a broadcast signal. I think broadcasters need to be interoperable. It opens up the world of the future so broadcasters can continue to play its vital role, whether you get it through subscription tv or over the air. It is probably 60 million americans exclusively over the air. When you add up second or third tvs, its probably a lot more than that. Broadcasting is as a matter of Public Policy needs to be there. Richard we just paid all of that money for the big screen that now we have to go through it all again. Gordon it could be rolled out in stages, but a National Deadline worked well and will probably require that again. Thats not an easy opposition. I was part of the last transition and i know what it took. This will be just as big and just as important, but i hear chairman wheeler talk a lot about channel sharing. That becomes possible with 3. 0 in a way that it is not possible with 1. 0. I hope you all will finish this job. Its good for broadcasting, its good for telecommunication. It means more than just a pretty picture. It means all kinds of development leap of faith such as they made going to hd, but that needs to be done again. Richard what about cable this time around . And you personally played. How do you see it rolling out this time . Michael we are a proud partner and supporter of everyone in this room. People are to be commended but i do think there are circumstances that are meaningfully different and probably more challenging in terms of a rollout. Theres not a Second Channel to jump to which makes me believe that suggests market by market more clearly than it does nationwide. The government currently has a fascination with internet overthetop video and i dont know if it will be as easy to galvanize around an incremental change in the Traditional Television experience in the way that it was and we should remember it took a really long time. They political dynamics are even a little more challenging today. Last time one of the most virtuous assistance in the transition is we had a revolutionary transformation into what a television was. Many people need to buy at because of the thinner lighter it became furniture and not so heavy and impressive. It always gets more difficult within a certain band of relativity. Its a little more challenging. Not that it isnt worth the, not that it is important, not that there are not consumer benefits, but i see it is likely more challenging than even the hdtv transition would have been. Richard as i recall, when we did the standard the last time we had to get government approval and that took quite a long time even after the Advisory Committee turned its recommendation after a year. The four c 3. 0 is going to require government approval in the whole or in part . Gordon theres a debate about that but i would hope for their approval. I think it is in the interest of the fcc to be a part of this and help facilitate it. If we say competition competition, competition, then broadcast needs to be a part of that and 3. 0 helps facilitate some of their goal to get gary moore spectrum in the phone companies more spectrum. My answer is yes. It requires the fcc to be a full partner in this and i think theres a Public Policy Reason Congress would agree with that says they should be our partner in approving it. Gary dont mistake my intense concentration look for a frown. It is something Plastic Surgery can fix. I was thinking about chairman powells comments of how this is different. Id think its a different transition in the sense that we have a totally different environment in so many ways. I think we should take the best lessons and there are very painful years you were the guy running it, you were the chairman of the fcc and you were a senator. The fear mongering and all of these things that happened, vote members of congress out of office because they did not have their tv signal. President obama his first decision as president elect was to delay the transition. We probably did not have to delay the transition because of fears. When it came time to make the transition, i never even heard a complaint. We did not take a position we did not support or oppose the fact we had a coupon programs of people could buy these types of taxes. We dont ask the government for this type of money and hopefully we wont in the future. It does involve the transmission standard and involves spectrum. Our goal in the short term is to make sure we go for it in a way that makes sense and we can do things simultaneously. I think we should take the approach that it is a lot that are if it is an industryled transition rather than a government one, which is what we had last time. Everyone is talking about this fcc, but this will not the the fcc in a year and a half. The odds are overwhelming there will be a new chairman. But we are focused on getting the spectrum lunch down. May i ask one of the panelists a question . Richard no. [laughter] you are going to get one back. Gordon gary chairman wheeler said do any of you have any plans to recommend any further delays for modifications . Gordon what we have done because we so object to the modeling they have for the repack is clarification so we preserve our contours and serve the customers we currently have. We thought an expedited proceeding. Gary so no new studies will be done, no new arguments will be thrown in . No new delays will be sought . Gordon that depends on how this goes. The truth of the matter is its so much larger than the last transition at the repack will adjust hundreds of thousands of tv stations whether they participate in the auction or not. Whether they come forward with roles that will allow them to go as quickly as possible, we dont want to drag this thing out. We want to know what our spaces and with 3. 0, we hope to do everything we do now and more. Gary sitting outside eating lunch, i sat across from a low power guy in he said he would do Everything Possible to delay this until he gets some of congressspecial tax credits. He said i want to get mine is this a healthy way to approach a natural a National Problem question mark just to delay, delay, delay . Gordon if there is 120 megahertz involved, i can tell you it is woefully short. I dont know who makes up the shortfall. I hope the fcc and congress will. Richard is there a problem that you see if we get the perfect world, that we have a standard in place before we did the auction so there would not be an unfortunate timing incident . Gordon it could be unfortunate us unfortunate timing and it could be fortuitous timing. We could to get that. If theres only one disruption and not to, so we will step on the accelerator. Anything you can do to help us in a timely way helps to make for one disruption not two. Richard gary, do you see were do you see more worldwide commonality than we had the last time around . Gary thats such a softball. Do you mean do we have to take any trips to brazil or europe . We tried. It proven to be the best in the world. I think the good thing here is 3. 0 is my understanding, it is going to be a global standard. Countries can do whatever they want and they often do for reasons that are not technical and some people like to be different. Gordon but it is so good for telecommunication, i think it will set the standard for the world because it will help us leapfrog the rest of the world and they will be catching up with us. Gary i think there are engineers all around the world working up to that. At least that is what mark has told me and i think thats good. Richard looking at the programming ahead, gary had touted ultra High Definition television and Everyone Wants to see advances. I dont know if its going to have the same kind of wow factor we all experienced as consumers when hd tv came around. What do you foresee in that regard . Michael its very difficult to say because people have different perceptions. It beautiful. I dont find it as radically transformational as i thought analog to hd was, which are member being chairman of the fcc touring and seeing my having my socks knocked off. I have 4k set at home, not a lot to watch yet. It doesnt have that dramatic differentiation. Other characteristics improve quality quite dramatically, hdr cable with the, the way color is rendered is quite beautiful. But this is just a cautionary tale. The human ear can only hear so may things in the human eye has so many limitations. You can only make a machine and begins to exceed real life and you have to be careful i dont know how to put this but i at some point, we are exceeding what is natural and the experience becomes unreal and jarring and almost too sharp that it creates a conflict with the way you see the world. I have no idea if that is 4k or 8k. If it helps gary sell more tv sets this week. Gordon i want to help gary sell more tv sets. If you put 4k content on a current hdtv, it is marginally better. If you put it on a 4k tv, i see the difference. Gary the experience and the reality of ultra 4k, the immersive experience you get being surrounded, the fact that you could be there with someone 3000 miles away, the opportunities here are really big and one of the drivers is not necessarily traditional. There are other things out there, there is prerecorded there is video there are all sorts of things happening in other areas that will change the experience we have as consumers of entertainment and 20 years from now on this stage we will be talking perhaps about the immersive experience and doing it all in different locations. I grew up on a lot of Science Fiction and that is what excites me about my job. The only things that could go wrong is if government requires permission before innovation. The broadcast is an opportunity for broadcasters. Cable is a phenomenally great type line and the cable industry is the most strategic and says we are not going to make all of our money from content. We are going to make it bia make it by being a pipeline. A lot of it is coming from the internet and Youtube Channels and new products are coming up that i would not have considered. Snap chat it was created and made by 21 years 21yearolds and was rejected. We still have a long way to go. We still have parts of the body that we have not used. Richard what some people find jarring gary im grateful for that. [laughter] [laughter] richard all of a sudden we are talking about 8k. Is that likely to be an inhome Consumer Product in the near term . Gary i dont talk about it because i think when consumers get 4k, they are blown away. We know there will be robotics and drones and personal devices Driverless Cars it is a great future ahead of us. Yes, there are other generations. This is like the patent guy who said 100 years ago, everything thats going to be invented has been invented. You think our senses are going to limit that . There are algorithms that will advance our senses. Gordon one thing you could plug now, i agree, as someone who is a consumer, who has been around tv for a long time, i understand part of the challenge. But we are being naive if we do not understand the trends that exist on the internet called good enough. The mobile phone is not near the fidelity of a fixed line phone. You could have fought forever. I am old enough, i can remember cell phones were not cheap. We sell fidelity. We sell quality. Telephone servers do not go down two minutes a year. There are so many things consumers will accept. The internet can do the same thing around video if we are not careful. There are kids that are happily contented with periscope and nothing about that will match anything on tv today. It does not mean it is not disruptive. It does not mean you can acclimate a generation around a different kind of Value Exchange of good enough. We think we can sit back and it will sell itself. I think we need to be advocates in assigning quality as high as the virtues people are getting from accessibility that supplements. It is just a challenge. I think we have to be committed to make the case for quality and not assume just put it in front of need or it will sell it self. Richard as far as ultra High Definition developments isnt even greater the possibility the standard for mobile devices . Exactly. Richard how will that impact gordon this is one of the greatest virtues of 4. 0. Broadcast mobility will be part of the future. Targeted advertising. Political advertising is important to broadcasters. It is broadcasting still but it is going to shrink unless you can be more targeted in microtargeting in elections. 3. 0 allows you to do that. So, there is a list potential opportunities and my challenge is to get all of my members to understand if they want to play in the Telecommunications World of tomorrow as an equal partner with cable satellite and the phone companies, you need to be on this new standard. It will open up new opportunities to customers, as opposed to being subordinated to in a position that leaves us really just over the top in the mobile world. And this just not enough spectrum to do all video in over the top. Theres not going to be. So, we need to do this. Richard gary, on the current standard, the government spent a couple Million Dollars equipping the consumers with settop boxes. Are we going to go through a Market Driven program this time . Gary i think it depends whether broadcasters get behind it or not, frankly. That is the challenge. Broadcasters were there in the beginning for hdtv. They lost an opportunity. Even though the market projections ended up being perfect to sell hdtv we did not have the broadcasters drive the transition. It turned out it was sports, movies, and believe it or not dvd. Broadcasters had an opportunity. They say over the air is important. The individual broadcasters did not promote the use of antennas. They just dont. I think that increasingly will be to their detriment. The same thing you mentioned with phones by the way, the reason for that is of got my share of members in common. Gary the Biggest Surprise for our industry the deterioration of quality with mp3 and people accepted lower quality. It was the tradeoff you are talking about. With smart phones, they do not have fm capability, but there is no market at this point. Radio broadcasters have not created that demand. So broadcasters have this phenomenal marketing to do. Maybe if the individual broadcasters do not see the return to themselves, for the industry there is no question. Sometimes you are creating a need that may not otherwise exist. Richard gordon gary will appreciate this and i think michael will as well. They all understand or a balance sheet. We are tried to keep all of the frogs in the wheelbarrow. Part of the job our association has is to look beyond the corporate report and say look to the future. And it does require as the digital age did, as it will again with 3. 0 also i have an easier job. That is what our companies are doing. They are always looking down looking for a field. It is a question of aiming for the future. In our industry, i do not think that there is an industry who thinks they can build on the fast. If there was maybe it was called circuit city or radioshack. Who think they can build on the past. Richard just talking about the key issues in the future Television World michael, it it seems every day there is a new streaming service. How will that impact the cable industry as you see it . Michael i think it will affect it profamily. It is a risk and a challenge and an opportunity. Look, internet protocol allows the right kind of flexible and strategic use of content. Ip technology, or some form of it, is what allows a recommendation engine. It is what allows integration with commonlyshared platforms. It is what allows the customer specific data it advertisers increasingly demand to be provided and paid for. If those all go well, i think they will do really well. If anyone says we should run away, i think we will get run over by it. I think we do get a little technoecstatic about some of this stuff. Television is still launching a great story. I think as spurs this Distribution Platform or that, i am still at home watching i think as far as this Distribution Platform are that, i am still at home watching madmen. We can get a little bit hyperbolic about how transformational or revolutionary it is. The human beings still craves story and the human being still craves being entertained. That is not going anywhere. Any time in history. Whether it is that thing or this wire or that or through spectrum or through the ground, they well watch it three and 10 hours a month they will watch it three and 10 hours a month. Gary all these new technologies all new content will evaporate. And the millennium, this was just the worst thing since jack the ripper and the opposite has happened. There is more creativity and content the never because more technology has enabled to do it cheaper. Big record labels have suffered, but content in music is incredible now. You do not need a big distribution company. Michael i think the challenge that is hard to square is the consumer is increasingly daily acclimated to wanting the finest and best television can produce and increasingly unwilling to pay or not desiring to pay what it costs to produce. The average Major Television longform drama costs 4 million an episode to make. My kids, i want to watch game of thrones, which has a budget that would blow your hair off. I want to watch breaking bad. Where is that going to be funded . When you jump into original content what was it, a 300 million annual x and expense . Richard isnt it true that a la cart pricing or packages of programs are something that consumers are going to want . Michael they are not going to want. They want it now. Richard and impact of the future of cable and other industries . Michael i do not treat it as a disruption. I treated as a different market. The want to consume in a different manner. They have the same passion. They have different expectations of when and how. They have different expert patients of what they see different expectations of what they see as the value tradeoff. We had a wonderful time when we all celebrated the universe. I remember this quest commercial. This guy walks into the hotel. Every movie ever made. Duration is still valuable. Consumers still craves the ability to have something that is simple, less is more well priced well valued. That means youve got to create flexibility around packages. Whether that is working with your programming partners or them experimenting or telling the government not to mandate bundles, or anything, but youve got to create the flexibility to give them what they are asking for anything you should he warned up this generation does not have to just take it. They have the tools, ability and the inventiveness to entertain themselves. If you do not give it to them, they will what you for the rest of your life. Is probably difficult to say in your position, but harking back, talking about the consumers and giving them what they want, i interviewed you when your chairman, and i ask you about tivo and you said this is gods machine. That was my view of you as chairman. That was my favorite quote that you had. Now there are lawsuits against tivo and we expect the personal video recorder to be a usable products. But thats the law. You have to give consumers what they want. Richard what about retransmission consent in that regard . People paying for broadcast signals . What do you think about that . Gordon im all for it. [laughter] gordon as long as broadcasting continues to reduce the mostwatched content, as long as local as valued, as long as we are free people in america we simply ask for the right to bargain for the power of our content without the government dictating. Richard what is wrong with that . Michael if it is valuable and they do not want the government to dictate it, sell it in the free market. Why do you need a government sanctioned . Richard what the marketplace what they have in mind is marketplace negotiations . Michael lies of trace transmission are not lines of transmission are not marketplace what is increasingly happening is consumers are looking for the content they want in different forms and the role where the content owner or the ip broadcaster has more control about where and how that goes and the consumer has much Work Flexibility about how the system works. That to me is just the reality of what the market pressures will produce. Look. Back to my original question the only thing i ask is if the government wants to reevaluate the market as it exists today and reevaluate the Market Conditions that led you to those choices, you know, 20something, 30 years ago, then revalidate that. I do think there are strains. Its not just retransmission. I do not want to get caught in that. But i think there is an important need to reevaluate what our Public Policy judgments wouldnt you love for the country do have a modern reevaluation of the sensible of localism . The reality is, i think that is a fair question to ask. Someone should ask that and decide whether the country cares anymore. And if we do care, that i think he has got a point. But if we dont care [laughter] michael none of us are in title ii permanents. We have to be relevant in the modern age. Gordon i think localism means less in new york and washington big metropolitan areas. Telling you i will tell you being for morgan being from oregon it is absolutely vital. For all of flyover america its an important value and if it went away well, its not going to go away, because every member of congress is for it. Gary so, is it like the Second Amendment . Gordon when is the tornado coming . What is the weather . These are things that people count on. You may not think about it in washington. But the one thing that everyone counted on it was not broadcast. It was broadcasting. Michael i would agree with everything gordon just said. Localism has a value. Thats not the question. The question is, does it rise to the level where the government should allow other entities to subsidize that model and should the government create legally enforceable preferences for that value as protected by law . You know it is super, super valuable mad men is super super value will. I do not want to miss it on sunday night. Gordon if the government was to get rid of all of the regulations related to broadcasting, most of them are harmful to our costs. A few of them, a few of them like must carry our beneficial to small stations. There is a tradeoff, but if the effort is to get rid of the few things that benefit broadcasters and revisit all of the other costing positions, then i would join you in that. I would take them all away. Michael i tried to. [laughter] Richard Michael michael, your industry is engaged, just Getting Started in a rather because you are concerned about the fccs open internet board and the possibility of title ii regulation. Do you want to speak to that . Gordon can i Say Something about that . As a member of congress, i did not vote for Net Neutrality. The best thing about Net Neutrality is it but michael in the bullseye in this congress and not me. [laughter] richard dont worry. You will be back there soon enough. Michael i want to go back and commend gary the first one to address this. Hes totally right. I could get in the weeds on this issue, but let me start from a high level point that is really important. Since the internet was invented in this country the administration of the time, Vice President gore, i could name many people i thought were instrumental in creating the original foundation of the way public a lessee would look at this new thing called be policy would look at this new thing called the internet. Richard including michael powell. Michael including me. The National Ethos was let entrepreneurs, innovators, and engineers and every day people determine the growth path and evolution of this phenomenal infrastructure and not adopt the model of a central regulator with attorneys and bureaucrats not working from the bottom up, but from the top down as we tried to do with the phone model. That was a Major National equipment commitment. That was the eve those for the last 20 years. That was the eighth those for the last 20 years. For the internet to grow unfettered by state and national regulations. For 20 years we watch to be country produce some of the greatest wealth generating innovating companies in the history of the world. There would be no google, no facebook, no amazon, no ebay, no snap chat, no whatsapp without this policy. The technology was deployed faster than any technology in the history of the world under that commitment. Secondly, we as leaders wandered around the world and demanded other governments do the same. We demanded governments with much more evil intentions over the internet russia, china the Arabian Peninsula no, we will not stand for regulating the internet like the telephone system so you can censor, so you can extract a necessary value. And on the decision on Net Neutrality, the government changed switch to that longstanding policy presumption. We have gone from a structure that is principally directed by markets and innovators and people to one that has lawyers and bureaucrats with an adversarial process and i do not know why anybody believes that that is a virtuous moment in time, and i do not know how we will have the moral authority to sit at the International Telecommunications union a year from now and tell the russians, you should not regulate the internet like a telephone infrastructure. That is a switch. That is the most powerful source of authority the fcc has available to it bar none. It is now a central and powerfully armed regulator and it has created a process of complaints that allows any company to collaterally attack a business decision, to allow anybody who is unhappy with any aspect of the market to run with the commission, and we will also there for the year or year and a half on average it takes for them to make a decision about anything, waiting or this process of coordination before we can even deployed. Then i go back to what gary said. The genius was the innovation of the mission. I think this is a tragic mistake the country will deeply regret. [applause] richard why dont you tell us how you really feel . [laughter] richard this is like the john oliver clip got. 2015. Pretend its 2020. Five years from now. We are talking about the future of television. What is the headline . Gary the headline is lots of great things, but ti think the wise man has to be tricked by the kid. The bird is in the kids and hands. If he says it is alive, he will let it go. If he says it is dead, the wise men will be wrong. Broadcasting is off the table now. They implement 3. 0. Thats broadcasting. For cable, i think they have more options. They have been very well situated. Upper services have come along with wifi or power lines talking about dividing broadband from satellite, which is a nice thing. There are a lot of choices that are very healthy. There is a natural progression path, but there will be surprises as really clever companies do amazing things. Richard senator, maybe the answer for you would be a small, more compacted broadcast industry . Gordon i think the headline is garys book will be in its 10th printing the chief will have resigned or retired. I think the future broadcast will be very bright. Atc 3. 0 you you will all have gotten your work done. We will have. Net implement it. Localism, free, live, large, will be available for all americans. Richard michael . Michael these are long headlines. Television goes platinum. I think we live in the golden age of television. How much more can it be . I think media will be so omnipresent, it will come out of your pores. Its going to be a stunning period for consumption. Cable trials television. Richard thats great. [indiscernible] [laughter] richard followup question. Just in a few words, michael what you think about the future of television . Michael its frayed. The first thing we can do is think beyond television. I think another headline will be we could increasingly begin to understand it is a form of human content and entertainment and that it is not fixated around one central device or room or experience, and that, which we will have transformed to a much broader, richer kind of experience with many more opportunities and companies and players and the ecosystem. I think that super exciting. Challenge is challenge, but its also opportunity, and who would not want to be in this is nuts . Richard senator . Gordon live, local, available on all platforms at all times. Gary sometimes you say television displays, and sometimes i think you mean Television Content . Or do you mean the ecosystem . Television is still one of the great technologies. The problems today with society whether it is health care or agriculture or food be resolved by technology, the internet of things. And part of that is the effective display you have and the content you get. It will raise all of us up. Richard i will just add my own words for everyone in this audience to what you have contributed to the current standard and what you will contribute to the future of television. Thank you, and thank you to this wonderful panel. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions copyright National Cable satellite corp. 2015] monday night on the communicators members of congress on privacy and Net Neutrality. It ostensibly authorizes bulk data collection, because last week we found out that these sent the Second District court the patriot act never really authorized to those programs. These programs are illegal. But the nsa would tell you that they were authorized by section 215. And the pfizer court fisa court issued a warrant that covered all of the American People. I think the Founding Fathers would be appalled. We have Public Policy that is woefully out of date. We have policy from 19 76. A lot has changed since 1976. We have the Electronic Communications privacy act from 1986. Someone could send an email to someone they worked with. Now we have email as a standard form of munication, one of the most popular forms of communication, and yet we still have these situation where a piece of paper in your desk drawer is kept to warrant standards, Law Enforcement would need a warrant to access that information, but an email stored in the cloud for 180 days or more is not subject to a warrant standard. What we are saying is the internet should be open and free. It needs to be something anytime the government gets involved, there is an openended pandoras box. We have had hearings where we really cannot answer the basic questions about what the roles are. We are just saying at this point let this be an issue for congress. Let this be an issue for elected officials. It is on the radar. But not to crack to have no consequence from the public. Monday night at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on the communicators on cspan two. Commerce secretary Penny Pritzker spoke at the internet and tv expo. She was interviewed by former fcc chair michael powell. After that, she spoke about the intersection of entertainment and business. This event, formally called the cable show, is hosted by the national cab