[opendtv] News: NAB, NCTA Square Off Over Competition
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: OpenDTV Mail List <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 09:17:04 -0500
This makes one wonder why the FCC does not have the guts to demand
that the cable industry reveal the amount that each consumer pays for
each channel?
As usual, what we wind up with is a bunch of industry sniping that
amounts to nothing. As I have said before, "Everybody is winning..."
Except for the consumer!
Regards
Craig
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6403538.html?display=Breaking+News&referral=SUPP&nid=2228
Breaking News
NAB, NCTA Square Off Over Competition
By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 1/2/2007 3:31:00 PM
Broadcasters have told the FCC in a filing that the retransmission
consent regime is working very nicely, thank you, and does not
disadvantage multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs).
In reply comments to the FCC on its assessment of the state of
competition in the video marketplace, the National Association of
Broadcasters focused on the retransmission consent regime, saying
that the cable industry was trying to "pass the buck" by blaming
rising cable prices on retransmission consent negotiations, in which
cable companies must negotiate for carriage with TV stations that to
not elect must-carry status.
Using recent FCC cable rate data as ammunition, broadcasters preached
to the FCC choir about the 93% ris4e in cable prices since 1996, and
pointed out that, for the most part, stations don't get money for
their signals and so couldn't be blamed for rising prices.
Saying that TV stations are prime channel real estate for cable, they
argue that retransmission consent rules allow for broadcasters to be
"fairly compensated for supplying that increased value."
The "real culprit" in rising cable prices, said the NAB, is limited
competition in the cable marketplace, pointing to a General
Accounting Office study that prices are lower in communities that
have wireline competition.
Nor surprisingly, the cable industry was having none of it. In its
filing to the FCC, the National Cable & Telecommunications
Association said that the video marketplace is so "drenched in
competition" that no credible case can be made that "further
government intervention is necessary," though it was referring more
to the telephone company's attempts, with some success, to gain a
clearer regulatory path to video and broadband competition to cable.
NCTA took aim at the FCC price study and its 93% boost since 1996. It
called the data old and obsolete, said there were other reasons for
the GAO study's findings that had nothing to do with competitor's
competitiveness. They included that some of the lower prices could be
attributed to overbuilders who had undercut the market price and gone
under themselves, or others who had bought systems from some of those
bankrupt overbuilders for pennies on the dollar allowing them to
charge less. Still others were operated as not-for-profits, said NCTA.
In any case, said NCTA, the price hike figures to not include the
value or service hikes that accompanied it. It used a price "per
viewing hour" that showed minimal increases and a decrease when
adjusted for inflation.
It did not use the per-channel argument it has made in the past, when
it pointed out that on a per-channel basis, prices had not gone up at
all. The FCC this year stopped using that figure, arguing it was
mooted by the cable industry's refusal to offer a la carte service
and allow viewers to pay only for the networks they watched or wanted.
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