FCC May Move to Cap Cable Company Size

explosivejared writes "The FCC is making plans to bring back the concept of a 'size limit' on cable operators. 'FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has enough support on the five-member commission to pass a measure that would bar cable companies from owning systems that have more than a 30-percent share of U.S. multichannel video subscribers ... the FCC could have a difficult time defending the 30-percent cap in court. The move comes six years after a federal appeals court threw out an identical FCC rule on the grounds that the agency did not have enough evidence to justify it."

Comments

Tough to Measure Now.... Almost Impossible Later

[JRGhaddar]

What will happen in the next 5 years when IPTV becomes a reality to the masses?

This is where I believe we are headed:

All HDTV's will begin to have Ethernet Jacks, a NIC Card, and some embeded linux with a VTR and a HD.

You can Access IPTV/Local/Cable Channels from All over the world. VTR them. Watch YouTube and Other Net Video Channels, and be able to buy Movies for Watching like OnDemand. You can set your VTR from your office etc through your IPTV online account.

Net IPTV Companies will partner w/ HDTV manufacturers to make sure there IPTV Portal is what is the default portal on connecting to the net.

So to bring this back to today. Technology is changing the game so fast that monitoring a 30% rule seems mute because it's tough to measure now and once the HDTV gets on the net how the hell are they going to monitor all that without everybody getting upset. Consumers don't want to be watched by the governement and the internet is a global entity; which makes it difficult to get Viewer numbers on a company that may be overseas.

This doesn't really address the problem

[Dachannien]

The real problem is not that an individual cable TV provider has too large a market share. The problem is that there is no competition among providers because of regional, not national, monopoly status.

Re:This doesn't really address the problem

[squiggleslash]

It's a bit of both. If someone owns a significant number of TV viewers, they have a strong influence on what TV channels those viewers have access to. That can have a major impact upon free communications and diversity of media.

As you say though, from a consumer standpoint it's also bad to have just one cable operator in one area, and that isn't impacted at all by whether or not Time Warner or Comcast serves 10% of TV viewers or 90%.

Re:This doesn't really address the problem

[bhmit1]

Absolutely correct. The current system really discourages competition. I'd much rather see a policy that forbids exclusive local rights for cable companies. Then, instead of the 30% limit, let the companies get as large as they want, but regulate them if they get too large and some portion of their customers only have one choice for either cable, internet, or telephone access. This would encourage unregulated small startups to fill a market need, but if one company destroys all the competition they can't turn around and raise all the rates on their customers.

What about satelite?

[acoustix]

Why are they focusing on cable companies? What about DSS services? Seems to me that this move will hurt cables ability to compete with larger nationwide satelite services like DirectTV and Dish.

Nick

Re:The Magic Of The Free Market

[jc42]

Hmmm ... Only one mod, "Insightful". This is a good example of why we should encourage people to always include a smiley in posts that are written as humor. Especially the one that on their surface can be read as any of the conventional semi-religious economic dogmas. People who believe in those dogmas do get mod points, and they tend not to notice subtle humor.

I agree and disagree

[OrangeTide]

I agree that cable operators should not grow and merge into a powerful monopoly. I think it is unfair to consumers and reduces competition. But I disagree that the FCC has the authority to regulate a business, even if they have done so in the past. If any battles between the FCC and corporations are ruled on by a constructionalist judge, it is unlikely the FCC would succeed. Since the FCC has little constitutional authority and a constructionalist would likely only view the department as a manager of broadcast spectrum and regulation of radio emitting and receiving devices. And such judges take a dim view of government entities overreaching their authority.