Marvin Ammori

I spoke with the Washington Post about online television and a cable-industry initiative called TV Everywhere.

Indeed, Marvin Ammori, a media law professor at the University of Nebraska, warns that the TV Everywhere model could edge out small competitors who would provide alternatives to the cable subscription model. Ammori, an advisor to public interest group Free Press, said his group and others will urge regulators to closely scrutinize TV Everywhere’s impact on consumers and competition for new video companies.

“TV Everywhere is an effort by the old guard, the incumbent cable industry, to make sure change doesn’t come to the television,” Ammori said. “And their way of doing that is to make sure you can’t cancel your cable TV service and enjoy the dream of watching your favorite shows through new competitors like Hulu, Roku and Vuze.”

I also spoke with Wendy Davis at MediaPost about how the potential merger emphasizes the need for strong net neutrality rules.

The concern is that Comcast could use its status as the country’s largest Internet service provider to privilege its own online content, says Marvin Ammori, a University of Nebraska law school professor who advises Free Press. For example, Comcast could theoretically prioritize traffic to NBC.com at the expense of visits to other sites.

“This is yet another example of why we need a very firm and very strong net neutrality rule,” Ammori says.