WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Friday announced his support for opening the market for cable set-top boxes, singling out the devices in millions of homes as a clunky and outdated symbol of corporate power over consumers as he introduced a broad federal effort to increase competition.
In an unusual step, Obama weighed in personally on a pending proposal at the Federal Communications Commission, having his administration file comments that applauded the effort to loosen cable companies' grip on the boxes and endorsing the move in an interview.
He said it was one example of the kinds of actions government agencies should take in response to an executive order he signed Friday calling for proposals for administrative action to promote competition and better protect consumers.
"The cable or satellite box is just one example of an area where, because it's been tied to the provider and you rent it, and consumers spend billions of dollars on it every single year, there hasn't been much innovation," Obama told Yahoo Finance in an interview taped Thursday. "Our private sector thrives, and innovation is the hallmark of the United States — that's our big comparative advantage with other countries — but it starts to become less effective, and reduces both what consumers get and the kind of innovation we generate, if we get closed systems or if people are gaming the system."
The announcements are the latest moves by Obama to push back against the forces of consolidation and monopoly, and to shift power away from large corporations in an array of industries.
The president's aides gave no examples of the kinds of rules that Obama would like to see agencies propose in response to the executive order. Jason Furman, the chairman of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, said White House officials had already notified the agencies of the coming call for recommendations, so some of the regulations were already underway.
The administration can comment on any proposal by the FCC, an independent agency, but it does so sparingly, and it is rare for the president himself to speak out on a pending matter. In this case, his advisers said that Obama felt that the issue merited his involvement because of its importance for consumers and the broad impact the changes could have on the cable market, one that touches many U.S. households.
The FCC proposal would allow subscribers to choose and buy the devices they use to view television programming, instead of leasing the boxes from their cable companies at an average annual cost of $231. The agency approved the plan in February, starting a 60-day comment period that closes in a week.
In comments submitted Friday, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, part of the Commerce Department, urged the FCC to take a "measured and balanced" approach to injecting competition into the set-top-box market, including enabling alternative providers to provide their own user interfaces as well as other features and services on the devices. The filing argued that the way set-top cable boxes now function goes against telecommunications laws requiring competition in the market, depriving 100 million U.S. families of choices.
Among the supporters of the set-top box proposal are technology companies like Google, Amazon and Apple, which are eager to establish a broader foothold in the TV market. The cable industry is opposed, calling it a giveaway to wealthy tech companies.
In a blog post, Furman and Jeffrey D. Zients, the director of the National Economic Council, called the set-top box rule the "mascot" for Obama's new pro-competition executive order.
They compared the devices to the bare-bones telephones that consumers once had to rent from telephone companies as a condition of service and noted that when the FCC moved in the 1980s to open the industry to competition, the price, styles and functionality of telephones improved.
"Instead of spending nearly $1,000 over four years on a set of behind-the-times boxes, American families will have options to own a device for much less money that will integrate everything they want — including their cable or satellite content, as well as online streaming apps — in one, easier-to-use gadget," Furman and Zients wrote.
The push announced Friday is in line with Obama's promise in his State of the Union address this year to find ways to help workers, small businesses and entrepreneurs. In a report issued Friday, the Council of Economic Advisers said that competition was declining in many industries and argued that the decrease was having a harmful effect on consumers and workers.
Obama has acted several times to combat the trend, including signing legislation to unlock cellphones, which allows consumers to switch providers while keeping the same device.
The Transportation Department has pressed airports to open slots to more airlines, while the FCC adopted rules for auctioning wireless spectrum intended to allow smaller players more opportunities to participate.
The president weighed in personally in 2014 on the FCC's net neutrality rules. He argued that the Internet should be regulated as a public utility, and he pressed for strict rules to prevent broadband companies from blocking or intentionally slowing legal content and from allowing content providers to pay for a fast lane to reach consumers. The rules were released last year.
The report released Friday listed several areas that the president's advisers said they thought could be ripe for pro-competition regulations, including so-called Big Data, the consumer information that includes buying habits and Internet browsing histories, price transparency and common ownership of stock by large institutional investors.