Federal Communications Commission "FCC XX-XXX" STATEMENT OF COMMISSIONER BRENDAN CARR Re: Cable Service Change Notifications, MB Docket No. 19-347; Modernization of Media Regulation Initiative, MB Docket No. 17-105; Amendment of the Commission’s Rules Related to Retransmission Consent, MB Docket No. 10-71. Mind the gap. Cross traffic does not stop. Beware of dog. There is no doubt that notice can be a good thing. It helps us to stay safe in unfamiliar circumstances and to make informed choices about our day-to-day lives. But not all notice is created equal. To be truly meaningful, notice must be relevant, timely, and actionable. And, most of all, accurate. If our subscriber notice requirements for cable service changes are not providing customers with meaningful information, then the notices may be doing more harm than good. And there is every indication that this might be the case. For instance, our rules require cable providers to notify their customers 30 days before a channel goes dark, provided the change is within the provider’s control. But here’s the catch—a Catch-76.1603, if you will—in carriage negotiations, no single party controls the outcome. And as a practical matter, it is not always clear when a provider hits that 30-day mark. After all, retransmission consent and program carriage disputes are often resolved within the 30-day window before an agreement expires and both sides seem to agree that carriage disruptions are exceedingly rare. So it would be odd for the FCC’s rules to require providers to send notices when there is no indication that negotiations have broken down. And that notice would not appear to advance the interests of consumers, either. Therefore, we ask the right questions today about ways we can create a more effective notice regime. I want to thank the Media Bureau for its work on the item. It has my support. 2