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from: Lasar's Letter

FCC’s New Cable Rules — One Step Forward, One Step Back?

From Lasar’s Letter, November 1, 2007
By Matthew Lasar

Media reform groups offered mixed reviews at best to the Federal Communications Commission’s latest moves on cable competition and video franchise authority.

“Today, the FCC gives to the American people with one hand, but takes back with the other,” declared Harold Feld of the Media Access Project after today’s decisions on competition and franchising.

The FCC ruled that cable companies can no longer demand exclusivity clauses in apartment buildings and other so-called Multiple Dwelling Units (MDUs). The landlords of such units often negotiate exclusive deals with a single cable operator to service the whole building.

“I believe that people that live in apartment buildings deserve to have the same choices as people that live in the suburbs,” FCC Chair Kevin Martin said in his public statement on the decision. “There is no reason that consumers living in apartment buildings should be locked into one service provider.”

The Commission voted unanimously to approve the change. They did not unanimously pass a separate order to further preempt the authority and scope of Local Franchising Authorities (LFAs)—city and county agencies that set terms for cable providers.

In December of 2006 the FCC prohibited LFAs from setting “unreasonable build out requirements” for new applicants and put ceilings on franchise fees. The agency also set a 90 day time limit on the amount of time an LFA can take to negotiate a franchise with a new video provider.

Today’s decision extends those restrictions to incumbent video providers as well as new applicants. MAP’s Feld praised the video competition ruling, but said that the franchising move further deprives local communities of means to solve complex cable access problems that more competition may not address.

“Local franchising authorities provided a needed local advocate and counterweight against the power of these multi-billion dollar companies, who all too frequently ignore the needs of individual citizens or even whole neighborhoods of less ‘desirable’ customers,” Feld said.

The Alliance for Community Media also issued a statement condemning the order.

“This ruling is one more attempt to destroy even the most humble aspects of community control, self-determination or diversity in media,” the statement concluded.

The Commission approved the measure by a vote of three to two, both of the FCC’s Democrats voting no. Jonathan Adelstein accused the agency of turning the video franchise process “into a regulatory minefield for local governments, and that will likely impact the ability of local government for provide critical, state-of-the-art services when it matters most.”