FCC Video NOI to Gauge 2008, 2009 Data, Economy’s Impact
To catch up on reports to Congress on pay-TV competition, a draft FCC notice of inquiry asks for several years of subscriber data, agency and industry officials said. The NOI for annual reports on the video programming market will likely cover 2008 and 2009, they said. It will supplement a notice released in the waning days of the chairmanship of Kevin Martin seeking data for 2007, they said. Commissioners will vote on the new item by the April 8 meeting (CD March 10 p10).
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The last report on video competition approved by the FCC covered the 52 weeks through June 30, 2006, so the agency is several years behind. Though approved in late 2007, it was issued in January. By combining several years’ worth of data into a new notice, the commission hopes to catch up, said industry and agency officials. The pending notice doesn’t specifically ask about whether cable operators have passed the so-called 70/70 subscriber threshold, an FCC official said. Debate over the methodology of a finding that threshold was met delayed an agency meeting by 12 hours and was part of a congressional investigation.
By seeking to count the number of pay-TV subscribers, the pending notice could help answer the question of whether cable operators serve more than 70 percent of homes they pass with at least 36 channels, the official said. Such a finding is highly unlikely, said an analyst who advised Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein on the 2006 report. “The population grew and cable subscribership fell” since then, said Sanford Bernstein’s Craig Moffett. “So it doesn’t take Pythagoras to figure out that if we were far from the 70 percent cap last year -- and we were -- then we're even farther now.” The NCTA declined to comment, said a spokesman.
The new notice asks about how the economy has affected the ability of broadcasters and pay-TV companies to invest in new programming, said an FCC official. Questions about the economy haven’t been posed in recent reports, the official said. The NOI also asks about whether the industry faces a problem getting money and how the economy has affected business decisions, the official said. An FCC spokesman declined to comment on the pending item.
Many of its questions are similar to those asked in previous years, agency and industry officials said. The item asks about hurdles to video competition, how new entrants affect the market and barriers to new competitors, a commission official said.