FCC Unlikely to Combine Media Ownership, Cable Cap Reviews
The FCC broadcast ownership review is likely to remain separate from a reworking of cable caps, agency officials said. They said Chmn. Martin tried to merge the rulemakings but lost out because colleagues wanted them addressed separately. In 2006 Martin twice floated proposals to meld the efforts, most recently around Sept., an FCC official said. Other Commissioners didn’t find a good reason to combine the broad media limit review -- prompted by a 3rd U.S. Appeals Court, Philadelphia remand -- with a cable limit reworking ordered in 2001 by the U.S. Appeals Court, D.C., FCC officials said.
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The broadcast inquiry probably will remain on its own, they said. Cable caps have been off the radar, but the issue isn’t dead and an order on them could be voted on before broadcast rules, an FCC source said. Martin sought to combine the 2 rulemakings because doing so would give him “more leverage,” said another source.
“Adding cable to the broadcast ownership docket just further confuses the situation,” an FCC staffer said: “It just makes it a lot messier, as opposed to the way we are dealing with it now.” Skepticism of that sort is believed to have prompted Martin to back-burner his plan. He first tried to combine cable and broadcast inquiries when drafting the July 24 media ownership further notice of proposed rulemaking, an FCC source said. Martin next broached the subject after the Minority Media & Telecom Council (MMTC) urged Aug. 23 that the broadcast rulemaking be withdrawn for failing to include minority ownership proposals remanded by the 3rd Circuit, FCC officials said. “Martin said he'll deal with MMTC’s minority concerns but also put on the cable item,” an official said: “But everyone thought that was not right because MMTC is a different item” from cable caps. MMTC doesn’t want its request, still inert at the FCC, to include cable, Exec. Dir. David Honig said: “We don’t want minority ownership to be hostage to this unrelated issue.”
Commissioners seemed to believe the broadcast review “is already complicated enough,” without adding issues, an FCC staffer said, adding that there wasn’t “a lot of enthusiasm” for linking broadcast and cable caps. Apart from 8th-floor skepticism to his earlier plan, Martin may hesitate to raise a new cable proposal because he wants to focus first on promoting video competition by new telco entrants including AT&T and Verizon, another FCC official said. Possibility: Martin will try to define IPTV as an information service before trying to revise the cable cap. Not so, said the first FCC official, discounting the link between defining IPTV and cable caps. Martin could act on cable rules regardless of what happens with IPTV, that official said. AT&T has said its U-verse IPTV service need not be regulated like cable because it’s a different service. NCTA has disagreed and said IPTV should be subject to Title 6 cable rules.
Another reason Martin may not act soon on cable caps is lack of priority -- for him or industry, Commission sources said. The chairman “doesn’t appear to be very concerned about it,” said an FCC official. Industry sources said cable frets about other issues, like VoIP interconnection rules and set-top box integration ban waivers, a slew of which the agency acted on Wed. (see separate story). Recent months have seen Martin grilled on cable caps at several investor conferences, the most recent on Wed., hours before the cable set-top box integration ban waivers were issued (CD Jan 11 p1).
Despite FCC inertia, cable ownership isn’t dead at the Commission, said agency officials. Martin’s failure to link cable and broadcast limits may make it easier to act first on caps, an official said: “It’s likely if they're not linked you'd see the cable item move first. But as for a specific time for that, I don’t know.” A reworked cap could retain the remanded limit of 30% of U.S. homes passed by cable one company can serve, said industry sources. NCTA hasn’t voiced a position on cable caps because there’s no proceeding.
Comcast is the only cable operator in line to benefit from clarity on caps, communications lawyers and analysts said. The company is near the remanded 30% line. Comcast owned or had an “attributed” interest in cable systems serving 28.1% of all pay-TV subscribers as of June 30, it told the FCC last year. That portion may have slipped slightly because of the dissolution of some cable partnerships, said an industry source. “Comcast is obviously the one… It really doesn’t affect too many people,” said Janco analyst Matthew Harrigan. Time Warner Cable and other large operators would be affected only if they made large acquisitions, he said: “Unless you really had a lowering of the threshold, which I don’t think will happen, I don’t think it’s that big a deal for anybody.”