Slashdot Mirror
Congress Turns Up The Heat on FCC's Chairman
Fletch writes "FCC Chairman Kevin Martin could be in for an uncomfortable spring, as House Energy Committee Chair John Dingel (D-MI) has requested a truckload of FCC paperwork relating to some controversial decisions Martin has made. Those include the FCC's reversal on the a la carte cable issue and newspaper-television cross-ownership restrictions. 'This request has got to be turning the FCC completely upside down. Significantly, it appears to reflect a bipartisan discontent with Martin's performance. Democrats and some Republicans are upset over his recent move to relax one of the agency's key media ownership rules, as well as the rushed manner in which he handled the matter late last year. Other Republicans dislike what they see as Martin's persecution of the cable industry, especially Comcast.' The Committee originally announced its intention to investigate the FCC in January."
Comcast & other big media could not fully corrupt the FCC into doing what they want but with greater power comes greater corruption and congress turned out to be easier.
IIRC, the reason why the cable companies don't want A-La Carte pricing is because the law only applies to consumers.
Businesweek 12/7/05
While it may be years before any such model is put in place and it's hard to say how the end result will look, a consensus is emerging that some channels would suffer -- if not fall away altogether. Content providers now compel cable operators to offer their niche channels by bundling them with must-haves like ESPN or MTV. Without being bundled into a bigger package, less popular channels such as ESPN Classic and MTV2 could struggle to garner a large enough audience to survive.
So while the consumer can choose what channels he or she wants, the cable company still has to pay for it. It's kind of like if the Grocery Store (cable company) forced you (the consumer) to buy the fruit salad because they bought all their fruit from the same company (TV station) who charges them the same regardless of how many individual pineapples or watermelons they bought. Oh, and noone else is making these varieties of pineapples or watermelons. Now, if you want Papaya (specialty station) you can go to the Grocery Store down the street (Satellite) but they make their fruit salad without the Pineapples which you want.
So the consumer's best option is to get his tropical fruit off someone selling out of his van (P2P), which has it's own set of risks entirely.