FCC Votes to Restrict Exclusive Cable Programming Deals

Aiming to further level the playing field between cable television and its fledgling rivals, the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday approved new rules against exclusive cable programming deals.

The agency’s five members voted to resolve rivals’ complaints about access to cable programming more quickly by setting time limits for settling disputes. The agency also signaled that it will levy financial penalties on companies that willfully violate program access rules.

FCC Commissioner Susan Ness said the new regulations were needed to fine tune rules that have been in place since 1993. The changes, she said, would promote “swift justice.”

Under current law, cable programs owned by a cable company and transmitted to local cable systems via satellite must be made available to all rivals. Although most cable programming is sent in that manner, the rise of competing technologies--like fiber optic cable--have offered cable companies a means of avoiding the requirement.

Since about 87% of American households that subscribe to video programming get it delivered by cable, critics say giant cable operators, such as Time Warner Inc. and Tele-Communications Inc., can use their market clout and extensive program ownership interests to underprice rivals or lock them out of programming altogether.

The FCC’s new initiative broadens a federal clampdown on the $30-billion cable-TV industry that has gained momentum this year in the wake of an explosion of consumer ire about poor cable service as well as service fees that have skyrocketed four times higher than the rate of inflation.

But it was immediately blasted by cable industry officials as unnecessary regulatory red tape.

“The record is clear that cable’s competitors already have access to virtually all of the most popular cable program services,” said Decker Anstrom, head of the National Cable Television Assn. in Washington. “And in only a handful of cases has the FCC found it necessary to take action under its current rules.”