Martin Ready To Hammer Cable
FCC Chairman Places Leased Access, 70/70 Finding on Nov. 27 Public Meeting Agenda
By Ted Hearn -- Multichannel News, 11/20/2007 3:09:00 PM
Washington – FCC chairman Kevin Martin is charging ahead with plans to hammer the cable industry with new regulations at the agency’s Nov. 27 public meeting here.
Included in the agenda are the following:
* Rules to force cable operators to charge no more than 10 cents per month per subscriber to leased access programmers.
* Rules that would effectively force Comcast and Time Warner to carry the Hallmark Channel and the NFL Network and pay the networks handsome license fees.
* A finding that cable penetration exceeds 70% of households, triggering a legal provision enacted in 1984 that gives the FCC potentially massive new regulatory powers over cable operators and, derivatively, cable programmers.
* A notice as the first step toward rules that would allow minority, religious and small business entities to lease spectrum from digital TV stations and demand carriage from local cable operators.
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he is a bully and he is trying to put niche services like wwe 24 7 out of business.
jared byron cheeseman - 11/21/2007 6:43:00 PM EST -
While Chairman Martin is 'hammering' cable, the commissioners may need to at the same time 'hammer' their staff.
As the major user of leased access nationwide, I find the refusal of staff to discuss such things as how a cable site is to accept and handle our progrmmming at the headends; the refusal to look at 'what if' situations to plan for changes before they occur; the basis of making users file individual petitions on matters they can easily already establish rules for under existing law; or taking nearly 8 months to determine if 'most' means most or only 50% as in the Cox, New Orleans case.
Lower rates won't mean anything unless FCC's staff quits coddling cable and begins to see that leased access users actually have the 'genuine outlet' Congress says it wants.
I fear the staff is far too cozy with cable and due to this makes the petition process a tool to discourge use of leasd access airtime.
FCC's Media staff needs to talk with those of us who actually use leased access to produce localized shows and quit being agents for cable.
Charlie Stogner - 11/21/2007 5:00:00 AM EST
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