Abstract
We are entering the 4th generation of TV, based on the online transmission of video. This article explores the emerging media system, its policy issues, and a way to resolve them. It analyzes the beginning of a new version of the traditional telecom interconnection problem. The TV system will be diverse in the provision of technology, standards, devices, and content elements. For reasons of interoperation, financial settlements, etc., this diversity will be held together by intermediaries that are today called cloud providers, and through whom much of media content will flow. Based on their fundamental economic characteristics, the cloud operators will form a concentrated market structure. To protect pluralism and competition among clouds and of providers of specialized elements requires the protection of interoperation. This can be accomplished by a basic rule: by the principle of an a la carte offering of service elements.