Most FCC Filers Agree Video Market Competition Increasing

Comcast, DirecTV, Verizon, the city of New Orleans and six others believe competition has increased, they said in separate filings released by the agency Wednesday and Thursday. Many pointed to online competition, sometimes from those covered by the FCC inquiry. “Established media companies, including broadcast and cable networks, are reaching new audiences by expanding the availability, formats and purposes of online video,” said Comcast, citing CBS, Disney, NBC, Fox, MTV and Tribune.

Software maker Verimatrix said its products haven’t taken off in the U.S., unlike other countries, because most pay-TV companies use proprietary content management. “Thus, consumers who want to buy innovative devices from suppliers other than the network operator are forced to buy and/or use a CableCARD unnecessarily.” The NAB said the portion of households relying on over-the-air TV fell 27 percent to 14.7 million last year, and those residents are more likely to be minorities.

In the three years since the FCC’s last notice of inquiry on video competition for its 13th annual report to Congress, “new developments have brought additional competitive benefits to consumers in ways that overshadow the steady competitive growth of the preceding 13 years,” the NCTA said. “During the three-year virtual blackout on annual video competition reports, the Commission’s attention was inordinately diverted” by those who claimed video competition was paltry, the group added. “The data gathered in this catch-up inquiry will make clear that these anticompetitive concerns have been overtaken by events, and that these issues are now relics.” Consumers Union said the only way to determine if cable operators have surpassed the so-called 70/70 threshold, which it believes has occurred, is to require the industry to report “under legal penalty” the number of homes passed and number of subscribers.

Small- and mid-sized operators still must pay broadcasters many times more on a per-subscriber basis to distribute their signals, the American Cable Association said. “Unfortunately, while competition in the video marketplace has greatly increased, so too have the retransmission consent fees broadcasters extract from small and medium-sized cable operators.” The NAB didn’t address such perennial concerns, but said terrestrial TV “continues to play a vital role in the delivery of video programming.” The Community Broadcasters Association said AT&T and Verizon helped low-power stations because the telcos are more interested than cable incumbents in carrying them.

DirecTV, Verizon and the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association sought restrictions on the ability to withhold programming from distributors or to bundle it with other content. “Cable-affiliated programmers continue to withhold, or overcharge, for critical sports programming, while network-affiliated broadcasters have dramatically raised their asking price for retransmission consent,” DirecTV said. Verizon asked the FCC to give it and other “competitive providers” access to all “'must-have’ regional sports programming.” Programmer bundling, tying and “forced tiering” hurts competition, the cooperative said. “Video competition may be thriving, but small providers looking to enter or stay in the market struggle.”