Channel Move Inquiry Letters Go To Dozen TV Firms

Other pay-TV companies got similar letters, said an FCC spokesman. They are Bright House Networks, Cablevision, Cox, Charter, GCI, Harron, RCN, Suddenlink, Time Warner Cable and Verizon. Subscribers of the 12 complained about deletion of channels from analog programming packages and their moves to digital tiers, said the spokesman. No one filed a complaint about AT&T, thus the company got no letter, he said.

The letter to Comcast said the bureau learned that its channel moves make them “unavailable to analog subscribers unless they obtained a Company-supplied digital set top box and/or subscribed separately to the Company’s digital programming tier.” The cable operator was asked to provide, in table format, dates of channel changes, identities of affected systems, number of analog subscribers in each system and a wide variety of other information. Another of the eight queries asked what gear subscribers need to get the affected channels. Comcast was asked whether it told local franchise authorities of the channel moves, and to provide a copy of such notifications if they were made.

Comcast was asked to tally oral complaints by subscribers about the channel changes, and to provide copies of written complaints. The agency asked for copies of materials about the switch given to customers and to declare “whether Company has misled subscribers by linking or otherwise suggesting that this channel change was made necessary by the Feb. 18, 2009, transition from analog full power to digital broadcasting.”

The NCTA believes it’s “perplexing” that the bureau sent letters of inquiry to cable and telco TV providers on digital moves because agency policies have encouraged the introduction of digital services, said a spokesman late Wednesday. “Consumers overwhelmingly want these services, and the commission itself on several occasions has enacted rules to further speed and encourage this transition. This ‘inquiry’ appears designed to reverse course, freeze innovative technology, delay the migration and throw the move to a digital world into reverse. Perhaps most troubling is the continuing pattern of subverting normal procedures and, in these instances, using the commission’s bureau to launch suspect inquiries designed to reach a pre-ordained outcome.” A telecom lawyer also said the FCC’s probe doesn’t square with its encouragement of digital video service deployments.

Verizon never sold a separate analog programming tier, essentially rending the inquiry into the company’s practices moot, said a spokesman. Instead, until recently, Verizon simulcast some channels in digital and analog, he said. The company went all-digital as a condition of getting from the FCC a CableCARD waiver, he said. “We will explain in detail what Verizon has done and how we're different from the cable companies and what Consumers Union has commented on.” A commission spokeswoman had said its cable probe was prompted in part by a letter to members of Congress from Consumers Union.

Several of the companies that got bureau letters on channel moves also got Oct. 24 letters from it asking about their use of technology to send only the programming being actively watched by subscribers to them. Comcast and Charter were among the recipients (CD Nov 3 p6), an FCC official said. Also getting the letters were Bright House, Cablevision, Mediacom, Onelink and Suddenlink, the official said. An FCC spokesman declined to comment on the switched digital video deployment letters.