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."
just ignore congress and shred every last document. Why not? Everybody else on Bush's team does this and gets away with it. Democrats in congress make a lot of noise but always bend over and take it when Bush gets angry.
The checks cleared in time.
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.
The summary seems to suggest that some in Congress want Comcast to have the freedom to throttle its traffic the way it does, and the FCC was standing in their way.
Comcast deserves all the examination it has gotten, and more. They have been terrible.
And "a la carte" cable is the obvious and fair thing to do. The claims of "undue burden" and "technically infeasible" are just so much crap. If they have the tecnical capability to do "On Demand", then they have the technical capability to do a la carte. Q.E.D.
Plain and simple: they just don't want to. Because then they can't charge exhorbitant rates for their bundled "packages".
And Martin is a great target, because communications decision-making is so controversial. However, there's still a huge number of telco/carrier contributions to various political campaigns and funds that are being ignored here. What of the millions of dollars used to influence policy and legislation? What of congressmen that shill for MPAA/RIAA and the cable/comm companies? It's all PR. Nothing but media blasts and putting Martin on the hotseat (which he richly deserves, for so many reasons).
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Not all people are as independent-thinking as you are. The Iraq "war" -- and the continued presence of Gworge W. Bush -- are excellent examples, demonstrating that an awful lot of people in this country believe what they are told by the media, no matter how ridiculous it is.
You asshole moderators, stop modding "troll" just because you disagree with someone's statements. That kind of behavior makes you worse than half the government pricks that get discussed here.
This is because cable and satellite companies fill the pockets of congressmen with continual loads of fresh green cash... These companies have powerful lobyists. They understand that under a la carte they will no longer be able to charge people $49 for basic cable when all people want is 15-20 chanels. they also understand that if they value certain chanels too highly under a la carte, then those chanels will fall dramatically in ratings as people switch to watching programming on less expensive cable networks. Cable companies will loose money under a la carte, I have no doubt about it, and they have no intention of letting it happen. The millions they blow in kickbacks and other funding given to congressmen is nothing compared to what's at stake under a la carte.
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
Yeah, this is a really rather disturbing abuse of Congress's oversight authority. For the first time since I was born, we finally have an FCC Chairman who actually stands up for the general public. What happens? Republicans and Democrats freak out because serving the public interest is not in the interest of either party. God forbid that the FCC Chairman might actually do his job and regulate scarce resources in a way that promotes fairness and equal access, provides maximum public utility, and preserves the viability of those resources for future generations....
Some of the things this Chairman has done include:
I'm sure there are others. I can't believe I'm saying this, but Bush actually got something right. Judging by the backlash from Republicans, I'm assuming it was an error on his part, but still, we as a community need to rally behind this guy.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
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.
So explain to me how legislating à la carte programming doesn't solve this issue?
If all carriers are forced to provide à la carte programming then Disney loses it's heavy weight bargaining chip. If Disney tries to charge a particular carrier more per customer, the carrier responds, "Fine, but less of our customers will subscribe."
There is no, "You must put these on the base tier." As there is no base tier, or at least the customers aren't forced to order it. Pricing becomes priced by consumer price elasticity (plus a margin of profit for the carriers). This is exactly as it should be.
One question for an American versed in sales and consumer laws: Do American laws allow selling the same service or product to different customers at different rates with little or no restrictions? I am all for bulk discounts, but in my experience if you offer one customer a bulk discount another customer purchasing the same quantity must get the same rate... different laws though.
"If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill