The cable and satellite television industry could be in for a big shift thanks to a small change proposed by the Federal Communications Commission.

The regulator is officially considering a tweak to regulation that would remove a major roadblock for companies seeking to offer television online, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler announced in a statement released on Friday. The change, if adopted, would allow any company that streams numerous TV channels online to gain the important designation of a multichannel video programming distributor, or MVPD.

"Big company control over access to programming should not keep programs from being available on the Internet. Today, we propose to break that bottleneck," Wheeler wrote.

In addition to the blog post, Wheeler officially released the FCC's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), which is the first official step toward changing the regulation. The NPRM must now be adopted by a vote from FCC commissioners, after which it will be open to comment before a final vote to actually change the rule.

It is notoriously difficult to start an MVPD, requiring massive investment in infrastructure to deliver television programming. By allowing for virtual MVPDs — TV providers that use the Internet to distribute content — that requirement is lessened significantly. Gaining the designation of an MVPD forces content creators to negotiate fees for retransmission of TV from local broadcast stations as well as programmers that are also affiliated with a cable provider.

The change is somewhat technical. Currently, a company is required to have transmission facilities to qualify as an MVPD. This change would remove that requirement, allowing any outlet that streams more than one channel of linear programming (meaning scheduled TV, not on-demand) and charges for it to become an MVPD.

"When digital technology made video simply zeroes and ones, it opened up the opportunity for new Internet-based competition to cable and satellite services," Wheeler wrote in the post. "Yet efforts by new entrants to develop new video services have faltered because they could not get access to programming content that was owned by cable networks or broadcasters."

Analysts have said that this shift could mean an influx of competition into the TV industry, as well as rapid growth for television delivered over the Internet.

"If Internet/Tech companies, such as Google, Amazon, Apple, Sony and even upstart Aereo were able to become MVPDs under the FCC’s definition, it would create all new levels of competition and begin to address all of the FCC challenges noted above," wrote BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield in a blog post from October on the ramifications of this type of proposal.

Reactions to this kind of move have been mixed. In October, the National Cable & Telecommunications association, a major lobbying organization for cable and satellite TV companies, warned the FCC that it should be careful in changing the rules, but did not come out firmly against the shift.

Others that have attempted to start online TV companies lauded the move. Chet Kanojia, CEO and founder of streaming TV startup Aereo, which had hoped to become an MVPD following its Supreme Court defeat, applauded the decision.

"We know that when our laws and regulations don’t keep pace with technology, consumers are the ones who lose out. Even though Aereo won’t have an opportunity to compete in this new world, having a clear set of rules for online linear video distributors ensures that we’ll have a robust video marketplace for decades to come. And, that’s a real win for creators and consumers," Kanojia said in a statement.

FilmOn CEO Alki David said that it was an important step for companies like his, which look to offer TV online.

"Though compulsory licenses may not be on the menu yet, the right for OTT services like FilmOn to negotiate deals with Cable channels is now mandatory. No more games, time to let the vision of broadcast grow," he said in a statement.