Economist: Streaming Services Shouldn’t Face MVPD-Like Rules
Eric Fruits, senior scholar at ICLE, is mentioned in this Communications Daily article about the FCC’s outdated broadcast ownership rules and risks of extending legacy MVPD regulations to streaming platforms. Read the full story here.
FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington is right that broadcast ownership restrictions need modernization, but his call for streaming platforms to be subject to MVPD-like regulation (see 2505270054) is economically flawed, International Center for Law & Economics senior scholar Eric Fruits wrote Friday. That would extend an outdated regulatory framework over more technologies, he said. Streaming began and grew because streamers weren’t subject to the heavy-handed rules that traditional linear providers were, and expanding legacy rules to streaming platforms could discourage technological experimentation, he said. Instead, the commission should revisit the broadcast industry’s national cap and “offer the MVPDs the same light-touch rules that streamers currently enjoy.”