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FCC Delays Vote On Cable TV Regulation
Tech.Luver recommends a story unfolding at the FCC, where Chairman Kevin Martin delayed a vote on a report that would open the door to more agency control over the cable television industry. Analysts say that Martin lacked support to pass the measure. The delayed vote was on a draft report, backed by Martin, that found that cable companies control enough of the pay-TV market to warrant more oversight under the so-called "70/70" rule — 70% of US households passed by cable and 70% of those with access to cable service subscribing to it. The cable industry disputed the figures in the report, and Martin's two fellow Republican commission members also expressed doubts.
Just what we need... More government controls...
They always know and do whats best for you and me!
I have to return some videotapes...
Why does the FCC get to censor the airwaves? ... abridging the freedom of speech is so hard to understand?
Just because they are "public"?
Or even worse, signals that people pay for that are sent along copper, as is the case they are trying to get to here?
Can police arrest me for saying "Fuck" in a public place?
What part about Congress shall make no law
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
I really don't want more oversight.
More Government Control!!! If you don't already monitor y IMS, Phone, Torrents and who knows what!
"70% of 70%" is a nice way to avoid saying "less than half".
It almost succeeds in making it sound like "PRACTICALLY EVERYONE!"
I respond to your sigs
A congressman is a constinuency's lottery ticket to see if they can strike it big and get their trivial or social crap made law. Ammending the constitution is a bitch and two-thirds so passing blatently illegal legislation that no one will ever call them on because it'll never involve anything that they can be brought to court for is matter of habit. The president could call them on it, but given that the two branches have developed some kind of fucked up complacency over the last century people are going to be basically bowned until they stop electing morally-certain but ethically void people.
a report that would open the door to more agency control over the cable television industry.
Clearly, more control is needed, to protect the children. 9/11
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
TFA is light on details, but it seems the proposal that was withdrawn was something about requiring cable companies to play material from minority-owned small businesses on the "excess channels" they don't use. Still questionable, but not "OMG the FCC wants to censor my cable TV!"
And BTW, the "fuck the FCC" people might want to consider that the fight here is between the FCC and CABLE COMPANIES about stuff like whether they should be required to provide a la carte channel options. Stuff that the cable companies may not want, but which doesn't seem to have a whole lot of bearing on free-speech issues. If you want to argue that a government bureaucracy is worse than a corporate oligarchy, that's a fair stance, but having both filed federal taxes and tried to get a decent internet plan from Comcast, I'm ambivalent.
The cable industry is obviously watching to defend itself.
The FCC would be fine if it did only regulate pricing along a publicly funed infrastructure but they don't, when they gain enough regulatory control over simply one medium in one region the use it as an excuse to have a blanket coverage and censorship of all sectors remotely related to it. To put this another way in theory they could eventually fine people for objectionable contect on the internet if it is distributed by cable or phone lines. I am not saying they will, but given the logic of their existence it is perfectly possible as is any sort of tax congress should decide to put on the use of physical lines.
If the FCC drops the hammer on cable I guess adult, language, subject matter not porn, will have to move to the web. I wonder if they are going to attack channels like TCM, FMC and IFC because they don't edit for TV? I just wonder how long after the move to the web they try regulating it? That's going to be a tough one because out of the gate most homes have access but it's not dedictated access so that 70% rule is going to become meaningless.
and auction off frequency ranges for broadcasting purposes? How is corporate collusion with government a good thing?
On the one hand, Comcast and their ilk have been dragging their heels implementing things like CableCard and working hard to keep their (in many cases) geographical monopolies safe from any other competition. As far as TV goes, most people's options boil down to little more than an antenna, DirecTV or The Cable Company. If there was an injection of more competition in the market I think we'd see a lot more innovative services like more robust video on demand, ala carte programming options, more and higher quality HD channels, and innovative new services we haven't even thought of.
On the other hand, this 70/70 rule sounds downright silly, as I doubt very much that's the case nationwide. The FCC has proven time and time again that it's an inept bureaucracy more interested in maintaining its own power and relevance than any concern for the public good. Handing them more power is seldom good for anybody.
I might be able to get onboard with something like a 70/70 rule if it was a little more automatic and less prone to government meddling. i.e. Let's say Comcast has 70% of 70% or more in a given metropolitan area--then kick in a rule forcing them to resell wholesale access to their infrastructure to other local competitors to keep them from being the only game in town. And before someone points out it's *their* infrastructure and they built and bought it--they did so with a lot of government subsidies and that infrastructure is sitting on a lot of public land. They only have mini-monopolies because the government has allowed it.
I'm interested to hear other people's takes on the pros and cons of all of this.
"so-called "70/70" rule -- 70% of US households passed by cable and 70% of those with access to cable service subscribing to it."
so only 30% of US household were NOT passed by cable, and have access to it. And of those 30% who can access cable, only 70% chose to subscribe to it. In conclusion:
70% of households can't have cable
21% of households pay for cable
10**% of households STEAL cable
(**=3% statistical margin of error)
Go tell mom! You heard it first on slashdot. The whole industry has been a miserable failure. The size of tubes required to carry high definition content is so large, the raw materials required for such tubes would strip 4 feet of entire Alaskan top soil. This is why I can only get television through my phone line. I only get one channel. In mono. With no moving pictures.
That was the worst definition of so-called anything. Even by slashdot standards.
Wait, can I still say that here? Oh, sorry, never mind.
It goes without saying that I for one welcome our new FCC overlords.
my insights may be modded Funny, but at least some of my jokes are modded Insightful
Which high dollar lobbyist and party fund raiser would this benefit? And which high dollar lobbyist and party fund raiser would oppose it?
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
So they want to force all-la-carte programming, but also force a bunch of must-carry programming as well? Who's going to be paying for the must-carry stuff? What happens when cable companies move toward an all on-demand architecture and the concept of a channel disappears (it is being tested by most companies now, and is how AT&T U-verse works)? They won't have any unused bandwidth, so does it become a moot point?
Are they going to force the satellite guys to do this in areas where they are dominant (and yes, in many rural areas, there are many more Dishes than cable lines on houses)?
And why are they picking on cable companies when I can't get a discount on my cell phone bill, even though I bought an unlocked, unsubsidized phone?
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
Show me something like "Little Mosque on the Prairie" produced by a US company, and I'll show you how much of your cable TV currently covers the middle 30% of the TV market.
Im not talking about roads or schools. Im talking about TV. If you dont like the rates then dont buy the service. Get a dish, get some rabbit ears, or read a book. I still fail to see way the gov should be messing with privet sector services...
I have to return some videotapes...
The whole reason we are in a situation where people are forced to listen to the same recycled crap on the radio is because the FCC dergulated. If there are two places that need regulation it's TV and Radio. Look at the BBC.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
... my house is wired up for cable (EXTENSIVELY, as there are drops on the ground floor, second floor, and attic), and I don't own a TV. I don't provide Comcast any revenue, though previous residents clearly did, extensively.
That would put me in one of the 70% of cabled houses, and in the 30% of the 100% of that 70% that, while having the wiring, does not have cable.
I agree that the government does need to get involved but in a different way. Currently to get a TV license you must apply to each municipality for that area. This causes situations like the one I used to live in. We used to live in Northern Virgina and we were forced to use Comcast when right across the street other people had Cox. The key was that the Cable companies did collude with each other because the Cox customers could not get Comcast either. Having price control in this situation would be horrible. My service sucks as it is, what is going to happen when they are forced to lower their prices.
The way the government can help is to pass a National TV license, one license to conquer them all. This would open the door for phone companies(I know Verizon is not a great example but I would rather have them than Comcast) to enter the market and may encourage cable companies to leave their little shelter municipalities. Getting more service providers(>2) to be in one area should be the goal not price controls.
"If you like Battlestar Galactica, you're probably a huge nerd." -Stephen Colbert
If the chairman of the FCC can be undermined by cable industry lobbyists this easily, he does not have the power to fulfill his duty as regulator.
Martin should resign and the job should go to someone with more backbone.
+++ Chromalon.
Government regulations rarely accomplish anything most of the time it's just a political grandstanding. Coal workers would not have a problem, they belong to these things called unions, that negotiate their hours worked. The evil coal companies would not want their workers to breath in coal dust due to lawsuits so they would mandate air filters. The evil car companies have a reason to build safe cars it's called lawsuits and their reputation. If let's say Ford builds a truck that does poorly in crash tests by say the insurance institute for highway safety (even though it passed the government regulation) then Ford's sales for said truck will drop until they redesign their truck to make it safer. Not all regulation is bad I'm quite grateful that plumbing fixtures come in mandated sizes, but the market is much better at correcting the problems then the government.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
I would note that any protest you staged that is considered to do harm to the public interest can be stopped. This is why we forbid hate speech; it generates a toxic environment. Similarly, with airwaves, the reasoning is that because there is a limited number, and everyone has access to them and regularly utilizes it, we should be aware of how what we put there affects them. In the interest of children, for instance, we forbid certain categories of behavior being portrayed during certain periods of the day.
You can argue all you want about the categories, but it's pretty accepted that environments that affect everyone should have some publicly motivated controls on them. The regulator of those controls, ultimately, is the government. And thank goodness! Because we have no inherent protection from corporations or even just other individuals otherwise.
But before I go, let me just say that the protection of private speech is every bit as important as the protection of public speech. Indeed, every horror tale of mind control and thought police centers around the loss of your right to say things privately. Read 1984 - it is an excellent illustration of the varying types of speech and how they might be impinged upon.
[Ego]out
The grandparent makes an interesting point; the FCC is actually part of the executive branch. But all the branches have traditionally been granted the right to do things 'for the public good'. It falls, at some point, to a decision about whether your shouting 'fuck' does more harm than good. Not just to you. Not just to the 'average, hypothetical listener', but to all of society.
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"Fuck" in most situations is a term that is considered, at the extreme, 'filth', because it is generally used to demarcate a degree of disrespect. Indeed, disrespect being the opposite of respect, not just the lack of it. It should not be common unless you feel a particular need to live in a culture of disrespect.
It is hard to have a word that carries such a strong connotation in common usage if you do not want that connotation to affect the behavior of people. This is not to say that there aren't a host of other things that might also negatively impact behavior, but most 'sane' parents disallow the use of words like that because they want their children to learn to respect other people. And it's not an unreasonable stance to take; most of the great people of the world in did not use such language. If they had, people would have on some level not seen them worthy of respect - simply because they clearly did not have much themselves.
There is absolutely no reason to be puritanical about language, but in channels of media wherein we can expect many consumers, it is not necessarily a bad idea to refrain from things that carry a connotation we do not necessarily want to propagate in behavior. This is why even if these restrictions were lifted I bet that even in three or more generations you would fail to see most 'respected' media take up the use of such words on a regular basis.
[Ego]out
good thing.
In the early 80's and 90's we had basic cable companies that provided a good service for a reasonable price, $19.99 a month. In the 90's comcast bought all the local cable stations and year over year increased the price. They justified it by offering a few more channels, but many I never watch.
Today comcast charges $45 a month for basic cable and around $65 for digital. I stopped seeing the value of paying for cable at $45 a month or $540 a year. It would be one thing if it was commercial free, but it's not. If you want HBO, Showtime or cinemax etc you pay more. I have one friend that pays $120 just tv with the exra channels. That's $1440 a year to watch TV and you get commercials for the majority of those. The ironic thing is he spends most of his time on his computer playing games and watching porn. He's been sucked into media services, so I hardly see him anymore and last time I saw him he looked like cartman on the WOW episode of southpark, I'm not kidding.
The thing is, I just can't seem to bring myself around to paying a company to watch mostly lame show and commercials. Commercials were originally intended to pay for programing of broadcast television. Now people pay for TV and still get the commercials. Well at least I don't anymore. I bought an antenna and watch 37 local channels in HD. I miss a few channels like the Food Network, Discovery and the History channel. On the other hand, I've been reading more and spending more time with people, which is kinda nice. I still get to watch the NFL in HD and honestly I think the broadcast HD looks better than digital cable or satellite.
The bottom line for me is regulation is a good thing for companies like comacast if they ever want a customer like me, which they probably don't, so whatever trevor.
Please see Amendment 9 on why the fact that rights not explicitly granted by law are retained by the people. Rights are not granted by government; they are relinquished by the governed (including removing the rights of criminals, "for the greater good").
As an actual representative of the NCTA, I wanted to offer a few corrections/clarifications to the discussion above.
As for the seemingly conflicting numbers of cable homes that are listed on our website, the answer lies in how you count households. One set of numbers comes from a company called SNL Kagan and another set of numbers comes from A.C. Nielsen Media Research. Total households is something between 126-127 million, but includes seasonal homes, vacations properties and so on. Kagan also has a figure for occupied households. Nielsen is only interested in counting homes with TVs and people in those homes who are watching. Therefore, the larger figure is homes passed, while the smaller figure in homes with people in them. It's a difference of counting homes that could buy service or counting homes with TV viewers in them.
As for the accusation by Orange Crush that Comcast (and presumably other cable operators) built their infrastructure "with a lot of government subsidies," this is not so. The cable industry has invested more than $110 billion over the last 10 years in its hybrid fiber-coaxial infrastructure and used their own capital and private capital. Cable is in a different position from the phone companies and broadcasters.
Finally, there appears to be some confusion over what the "70/70" test means. Someone thought it meant 70 % of 70%, or 49%. While Bob of Dole is correct that it could be this low, that doesn't account for current market conditions. The denominator in the fraction is 70% of households passed by service of 36+ channels. The numbers of homes passed today actually happens to be around 98%. After homes passed, the next part is homes that actually buy cable service. Most estimates put cable penetration below 65 percent, and the FCC's last estimate was well below 60 percent. See Adelstein's remarks on this point.