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from: Technology Daily

Florida Takes Another Crack At Statewide Video Franchising

By Michael Martinez

(Monday, March 26) Statewide video franchising legislation in the Sunshine State may be headed back to the place it died last year.

The Florida House Friday approved a bill to let new video service providers seek statewide deals instead of negotiating with localities separately. Rep. Trey Traviesa, the bill's author, offered a similar proposal last year.

At the time, the state House passed Traviesa's measure only to see it fail in the Senate -- where negotiations on it lasted until the final minutes of the 2006 session.

During the past two years, about a dozen other states have enacted similar reforms. The reforms are being pushed by the former regional Bell operating companies that want to get into the pay-television business.

Last week, Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt signed into law a measure to establish a statewide video franchising system in the Show Me State.

The Florida House passed Traviesa's latest proposal, H.B. 529, by a 104-8 vote. Under the bill, Florida's Department of State would be the sole video franchising authority there.

Last year's legislation was derailed by debate over a competing proposal in the state Senate that would have maintained the authority of localities in the video franchising process. Lawmakers were unable to forge a compromise.

Critics of the legislation have charged that it would not do enough to ensure that video providers offer services in low-income and rural areas.

In a Friday opinion piece in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, former Rep. Susan Molinari, D-N.Y., contended localities have invited competition into their video markets -- and are not blocking telephone companies from entering them.

Molinari co-chairs Broadband Everywhere, a coalition that draws its funding from the cable TV industry -- which has argued that it has had to obtain local franchises, and that statewide franchises would give the telephone companies an unfair advantage.

"Claims that video-franchising 'reform' will sprinkle consumers with the fairy dust of lower cable bills are equally fantastical," Molinari wrote. "As the fourth or fifth video provider in most markets, telephone companies will only marginally increase competition."

The Florida Senate is currently debating a measure that would require new video entrants to offer services to at least 50 percent of low-income households in their areas within five years of receiving statewide franchises. The Senate Communications and Public Utilities Committee approved that bill, S.B. 998, on Thursday.

Gov. Charlie Crist, a Republican, told the St. Petersburg Times last week that the intense lobbying efforts of the state's telephone companies have made him skeptical that stripping the franchising authority of localities is in the best interest of consumers.

"When you hire that many people to advocate a cause, it has to make you wonder," he said.