Free Press Calls on FCC to Open Inquiry Into Cable Market Competition

Free Press is calling for the Federal Communications Commission to open a broad inquiry into competition in the cable marketplace, similar to the FCC's just-announced inquiry into wireless phone/broadband competition, citing a D.C. federal appeal's court's scrapping of the 30% ownership cap as making that inquiry more necessary. By contrast, cable operators counter, the court's decision argues for just the opposite. In reply comments in the FCC's annual report on video competition, Free Press said that adding extra urgency was the D.C. federal appeals court's decision Friday throwing out the FCC's 30% ownership cap--again--as arbitrary and capricious. Free Press said the issues that need spotlighting include horizontal consolidation, program carriage agreements, wholesale bundling, leased access, the terrestrial "loophole," and PEG channel issue. The group argues that the MVPD marketplace is characterized by "increasingly high prices, dwindling network investment, and a lack of consumer choice amongst key aspects of the MVPD market." The National Cable & Telecommunications Association, in its comments to the FCC Friday, countered that the court had effectively buttressed cable's argument that the MVPD space is incredibly competitive given the "virtual disappearance of vertical integration between cable operators and cable program networks" and the increasing competition from the Internet and others.