Now I'm just waiting for the merger of Google and Facebook. My guess would be in a year or two...

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FCC death vote looms for the Golden Age of American TV
The inside story of Google's plan to pwn the TV biz
29 Sep 2016 at 12:00, Andrew Orlowski

We’re living in a “Golden Age of TV”, and the United States makes the most envied popular TV drama in the world. Breaking Bad, The Sopranos and The Wire raised the bar for everyone in TV drama.

More cash is invested in content: last year Netflix alone spent more on shows than either the BBC or HBO. It takes more risks and today, much of the best writing and production talent heads for TV, not movies.

At the same time, the USA also has the most dynamic TV hardware market, with OTT (over the top) services spurring demand for third party hardware like Roku’s kit, Apple TV, Google’s Chromecast and Amazon’s Firestick. All have exploded the cable bundle.

Today nobody, not even cranks, seriously argues that these TV markets are unhealthy, or in need of dirigiste intervention.

Against that background, we need to examine why the FCC is so keen to hand the keys to the TV kingdom to Silicon Valley. Today the FCC votes on a historic decision to wrestle control of how the TV industry distributes its material, inserting a new layer between provider and consumer.

On this vote rests the future of investment in a $200bn a year industry.

The closer you look at this, the stranger it seems. The FCC initiative is supposed to be about removing the obligation to lease equipment provided by the cable and satellite PayTV services to view the content. In response, TV and tech companies are backing a new technical framework that uses open standards and “appifies” everything, making any kind of hardware redundant. But the FCC has rejected it.

We’d love to list the minutiae of what the FCC wants instead, except we can’t: it’s top secret. Amazingly, we won’t know what the five FCC commissioners are voting on until after the vote has taken place. So much for open government.

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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/09/29/fcc_death_vote_golden_age_tv/?page=1