Benton RSS Feed

Will cable operators have to carry the multiple channels that broadcasters transmit on their digital television frequencies? As the question looms over the DTV debate, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has taken steps to support the idea. Under Chairman Martin, the only one of five commissioners to dissent in February when the agency chaired by Michael Powell denied a "must-carry" requirement, the FCC in recent weeks has issued two reports favoring broadcasters in their disputes with the cable and satellite industries over the issue. The first of the two FCC reports was issued Aug. 23, when the FCC said the satellite companies DirecTV and EchoStar Communications must carry all of the multicast digital channels that broadcasters transmit in Alaska and Hawaii. The agency also ruled that satellite companies must carry their high-definition programs. In a second order relating to the Satellite Home Viewer Extension and Reauthorization Act, issued Sept. 8, the FCC was required to consider the impact of retransmission consent rules on video competition. On this matter, the FCC said, "If broadcasters are limited in their ability to accept in-kind compensation, they should be granted full carriage rights for their digital broadcast signals, including all free over-the-air digital multicast streams." Despite the reports, Martin can do little to affect the issue at the FCC, as the debate about multicast carriage has become one of the hardest-fought, behind-the-scenes battles in the DTV transition on Capitol Hill. Broadcasters have been pushing for the requirement in exchange for accepting a "hard date" for losing their analog spectrum.

Grande Communications Networks, an established overbuilder, this week took advantage of an exception in a new Texas law that allows current cable competitors with low penetration to rescind their local contracts in favor of statewide licensing. A new Texas telecommunications-competition law does not let incumbents like Time Warner Cable or Charter Communications Inc. apply for a statewide operating authority. The law does, however, include exceptions for nonincumbent operators that serve fewer than 40% of cable homes within their municipal franchises. That exception allows Grande to apply for the state license.
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Linda Haugsted]
(requires subscription)

Changing media ownership rules is becoming a chess match at the FCC. The Commission likely will review cable ownership attribution rules, and act on them before setting national ownership limits. Separating the two items would help align broadcast TV and cable system rules on the thresholds for media properties to be considered owned by a media firm for antitrust purposes. National cable ownership limits have been an open question at the FCC for four years. “We've been waiting 4 years, and because it’s to the benefit to the cable industry that no rules be in place, this has been given extremely low priority,” said Andrew Schwartzman, of the Media Access Project (MAP). “The delay in acting on this is outrageous, and it’s all the more outrageous that the only piece the cable industry would like to have resolved, attribution, gets bumped ahead of the caps.” MAP may “have to seek assistance from a higher authority if they drag their feet indefinitely,” Schwartzman said, declining to be more specific. His group and the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors want a 20%-30% national cable ownership cap. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is expected by analysts to address newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rules, which could let one firm own a newspaper and TV station in the same market, before
tackling controversial national limits. A push for broad media deregulation by Chairman Martin’s predecessor, Michael Powell, failed when the public protested, Congress intervened and courts rejected some regulations.
[SOURCE: Communications Daily, AUTHOR: Jonathan Make]
(Not available online)

Regulators must place “serious and meaningful” conditions on the SBC-AT&T and Verizon-MCI mergers to prevent competitive harm and “remonopolization,” the American Antitrust Institute (AAI) said Wednesday. The mergers probably will be approved “one way or another,” said AAI President Albert Foer. “Only binding conditions can prevent violations of law.” AAI officials said the FCC must impose 4 conditions and enforce them through strong oversight: 1) The merging firms must expand their business operations outside their traditional service regions; 2) Regulators must impose “network neutrality” ensuring price and service quality are the same no matter what network choices end users make. AAI Senior Research Fellow Jonathan Rubin said this concept goes beyond content neutrality to include matters like the “speed of connectivity.” Rubin said “if this sounds like the old common carrier regulation, so be it; that’s the price you pay for remonopolization”; 3) The firms must divest overlapping facilities and customers “to prevent monopolization in specific locations and to encourage the emergence of additional end-to-end networks” and 4) The merged firms must offer “naked DSL” allowing consumers to get Internet access from telecom carriers and voice from other providers.
[SOURCE: Communications Daily, AUTHOR: Edie Herman]
(Not available online)