(Las Vegas, NV) FCC Chairman Kevin Martin was the first official speaker at the National Cable & Telecommunications Association annual convention here today. The controversial Republican has come out with a string of policy pronouncements and proceedings that has angered the cable industry — so much so that cable leaders privately speculate that Martin must have had a bad personal experience with his cable service.
But no, Martin said, in a short appearance before a packed room of cable operators. “I actually don’t dislike cable. Quite the contrary, I’m an avid consumer,” he said, ticking down a substantial list of cable services he purchases.
What he does like most of all, however, is competition. That’s why he’s pushed for a la carte sale of cable channels and relaxation of franchising requirements for phone companies, among the many initiatives cable despises. “I have tried to apply such technologically and policy neutral competitive positions across all platforms,” Martin said. “I have and will continue to side with the new entrants into the market in which you are the incumbent,” he explained to the audience.
Martin seemed to believe that all he needed to do was to explain his philiosophical position in order to gain cable’s, well, acceptance. “You should understand that I’m approaching these issues with the same regulatory philosophy that has guided me thus far,” he said.
It’s true that cable operators sometimes want the knife to cut only their way. Martin cited what he contends is the intellectual inconsistency between cable’s opposition to must-carry of all TV signals and cable’s opposition to a la carte sale of TV channels.
Cable has argued that consumers shouldn’t be forced to receive every conceivably signal a broadcaster emits, as the TV station industry has insisted in must-carry wranglings. But cable operators also believe that it’s far more efficient to bundle cable channels and that forced sale of individual channels would incalcuably damage the economics of the multichannel video world.
“If that’s really your belief,” Martin said in reference to cable’s views that channels should not be foisted on consumers, “that should be true whether we’re talking about broadcast channels or satellite channels.”
Cynthia Brumfield at 5:24 PM|Comments(0)
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