Re-Regulation of Cable TV Fails, at Least for Now : Media: The cable industry keeps a bill from the Senate floor. Supporters vow to try again next year.

Legislation to re-regulate cable television and let the government set basic subscriber rates apparently died Friday on the Senate floor after the cable industry and its supporters managed to keep the measure from coming to a vote.

Supporters of the bill said it would have passed easily. They vowed to press again next session to impose restrictions over the cable industry, which they contend has operated as an unfettered monopoly since being deregulated in 1984.

But next year, they predicted, the legislation will be more likely to include provisions allowing telephone companies to enter the cable TV business. The Bush Administration supports that proposal, but the television, publishing and cable industries argue that it would lead to telephone company domination over the information industries of the future.

The Senate bill would have allowed the Federal Communications Commission to set prices for the most basic category of cable programming and to review complaints over the pricing of premium programming such as Cable News Network, Home Box Office and ESPN.

A similar bill had already passed the House, and the Senate measure had been approved by the Commerce Committee on an 18-1 vote.

But a last-minute impasse developed when Sen. Tim Wirth (D-Colo.) proposed an amendment that would strike language forbidding cable companies from signing exclusive contracts for programming. Aides said the amendment had been slipped under the door of the committee office, where they found it Friday morning.

Wirth said he would not agree to any time limits on debating his amendment. Sponsors of the bill said they interpreted his remark as an implicit threat of a filibuster by Wirth unless his proposed changes were accepted.

To supporters of the bill, it appeared that Wirth was gambling that they were so anxious for passage in the waning days of the Congress that they would accept the changes rather than see the bill die. Wirth aides denied that, attributing the delay in delivery of the amendment to a simple mix-up.

Wirth--whose state is home to Tele-Communications Inc., the nation’s largest cable company--is particularly opposed to the proposed ban on exclusive programming contracts by cable companies.

Critics argue that such “exclusivity clauses” have hampered the development of emerging television technologies, such as satellite and wireless cable. Cable companies argue that offering exclusive programming long has been a hallmark of the television business, citing the major networks as an example.

After Wirth’s action raised the specter of a filibuster, the bill’s sponsors, Sens. John Danforth (R-Mo.) and Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), were so angry that they declared the bill “dead and buried,” aides said.

“As for now, the cable companies have won, and they get to keep their unregulated monopolies and increase the cost of service and allow the quality of service to deteriorate,” Danforth said.

Afterward, the cable industry was careful to not create the impression that it killed the bill. “The National Cable Television Assn. remains prepared to participate in the legislative process to work out a reasonable cable bill,” spokesman John Wolfe said in a brief statement.

The Bush Administration opposed the bill because it includes rate reregulation and because it does not allow phone company entry into the industry, which the White House argues is the best way to encourage competition.