FCC: 30% Cable Cap Is Reasonable Limit To Prevent Program Bottleneck

The Federal Communications Commission plans to tell a federal court Friday that it was simply following Congress's direction to place "reasonable limits" on the number of subs a single subscriber can serve when it decided in December 2007 to reinstate the 30% cap on cable subscribership. Rather than a speech restriction, as cable contends, it was a "content-neutral" regulation, says the FCC. The commission will square off with Comcast in oral argument in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Comcast's challenge to that decision. According to the FCC's brief in the case, it chose a cap that "reasonably prevents any once cable operator from impeding the flow of video programming to consumers," and one based on "sound economic theory, substantial record evidence, and common sense." Comcast, in turn, will tell the judges that the FCC's re-imposition of the 30% cap on one cable operators national household reach is a "speech limit" that is unconstitutional, beyond the commission's authority, arbitrary and capricious, and contrary to the DC court's own instructions.