The FCC needs to adopt ‘meaningful, enforceable conditions’ if it...
The FCC needs to adopt “meaningful, enforceable conditions” if it’s going to approve the proposed XM-Sirius merger, House Telecom Subcommittee Chairman Ed Markey, D- Mass., said in a letter Tuesday to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin. The commission should take…
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“immediate steps to enforce its previous requirement for interoperable receivers,” Markey said. The Justice Department relied in part on the commission’s “failure to enforce this rule” in approving the merger, he said. “This fact should give great pause to all Commissioners when reflecting upon the marketplace as it has developed… The Commission has a duty to see that its previous rule, as well as others are no longer ignored.” And since the combined company probably would take commercial advertising eventually, competing with over-the-air radio, terrestrial HD Radio reception “should be required in all new satellite radio receivers as a condition of the merger,” the letter said. “Only through such a mandate will the Commission adequately ensure that competition in digital radio services is as robust as possible.” Markey also suggested the commission double the companies’ proposed three-year restriction on price increases on service. The letter praised the FCC for seeking a set-aside of capacity for noncommercial programming but said the allotment should be “expressed and established as a percentage of total capacity rather than specifying a set number of channels.”