FCC Votes To Close Terrestrial RSN Exemption
Count Is 4-1; McDowell Expects To See Court Challenge
John Eggerton -- Multichannel News, 1/20/2010 12:25:44 PM
Cable operators that do not share their owned terrestrially delivered regional sports networks with their competitors will be presumed to be in violation of Federal Communications Commission rules against unfair acts or practices.
Although they will get to rebut the presumption, the FCC majority made it clear Wednesday it was taking action against what it saw as a loophole for multichannel video providers to withhold must-have programming from competitors.
As expected, the FCC Wednesday voted to close, or at least narrow, the exemption of terrestrially-delivered networks from program access rules.
The vote was 4-1, with FCC commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker joining the Democratic majority and Republican Robert McDowell dissenting with the advice that he expected to see the decision challenged in court.
Media Bureau staffer David Konczal said there were three reasons for the FCC's action. He said cable continues to have incentive and ability to engage in unfair practices; 2) that there is evidence of withholding programming, including must-have cable-affiliated regionals sports nets in San Diego, York, New York and Philadelphia; and 3) that there is evidence that such withholding depresses satellite subscribership, and thus reduces competition.
The commissioners voting for the order billed it as a consumer-friendly move to boost competition, while McDowell said that it was an over reach of authority whose ends might be laudable, but whose means were legally suspect. "The FCC is not Congress; we cannot rewrite statute," said McDowell.
Congress confined its access mandate to vertically integrated program nets to satellite-delivered programming, but the FCC Wednesday said it had authority under the "unfair acts and practices" section of its rules to create the complaint mechanism for terrestrially delivered nets.
MVPDs will not be able to deliver a standard-definition version of a regional sports network and withhold the HD version as a way of complying with access requirements. The HD version will be treated as a separate service for purposed of filing program-access complaints.
The access conditions applied to Time Warner and Comcast in the Adelphia mergers continue in force.
Dish Network and Verizon FiOS both were pleased by the FCC vote.
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On the 20th of January the FCC reversed its stance on the "terrestrial exemption" some cable companies including Comcast have enjoyed for many years. This exemption allowed Comcast to deny it's Sportsnet programming to local Philly market DBS subscribers. The obvious political and financial ramifications are huge. Since the ruling on that date, there seems to be a sort of news blackout on the subject. My take on this is that there is lots of behind the scene struggles on-going. One big chip in the on-going card game is that DirecTV owns the sole right to display the very popular NFL "Sunday Ticket". I'm just the lowly consumer. I've taken a firm stance that I will not bend to the wishes of COMCAST, although I am a huge Philly sports fan and suffer by not being able to see my teams. At this point I'd like to see some news describing the process and glimpse of whatthe future holds!!! How about the the rest of you?
Larry Haftel - 2/1/2010 10:37:56 AM EST -
So was Comcast FORCED to allow Verizon FIOS to pay to have Comcast Sportsnet? Or did Comcast do it out of the goodness of their heart (LOL!)?
Matt Headley - 1/21/2010 8:50:31 AM EST -
HI!
And I Am agreed and aor organization it's agreed with terretriall cable and in the past vwe want to do a partnership with a company who want to chanche in many part the al transmission of communication from terrestiall cable because is much better for vision the image ,sound and all much better is introduce HIDM andyou heve a high and better resolution of images in comparation with wat is now.Aor VOTES Is for terretriall cable
Mr.Marasoiu Marian Puiu
fondator Organization Freedomilenium
Marasoiu Marian Puiu - 1/21/2010 2:21:46 AM EST -
my life long dream come true i can get msg hd on fios for which i have just signed up for in staten island. i hope fcc can also regulate picture quality on abc and espn because sometimes they look blurry. i have onebill from verizon now cause i canceled sprint last week on the same day i got fios.
billy two - 1/20/2010 6:17:54 PM EST -
Yes. Long overdue. Comcast, for one, should be careful not to fight against this too hard, they have to look good if they want the NBC Universal deal to go through.
M. Richards - 1/20/2010 12:58:25 PM EST
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