News Corp. and Viacom executives are among those who met with FCC...
News Corp. and Viacom executives are among those who met with FCC officials in March to oppose making cable programmers let pay-TV companies distribute their channels separately and not offer price breaks for multiple channels. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin…
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is believed to want to circulate an order in 2008 imposing so-called wholesale a la carte (CD March 30 p2). Thursday, Viacom officials met with an aide to Commissioner Deborah Tate to explain why they believe the agency lacks congressional authority to impose wholesale a la carte. They cited sections 628(b) and 628(c)(2)(B)(iii) of the 1992 Cable Act. “If Congress has not granted the Commission authority to regulate packaged sales and volume- based pricing by vertically integrated cable programmers and broadcasters, then certainly it did not intend for the Commission to regulate the sales practices of independent programmers,” said Viacom’s ex parte. News Corp. executives told an aide to Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein that there’s no proof that rules are needed to force the sale of individual channels to TV sellers. “No party has market power, and the competitive free market works to ensure that programmers and cable systems reach mutually beneficial agreements,” said a News Corp. ex parte. Officials from AT&T, DirecTV, RCN, USTelecom and other members of the Coalition for Competitive Access to Content met with aides to all five FCC members to argue against early termination of a rule, expiring in 2012, preventing cable operators from withholding from other pay-TV companies channels the operators have stakes in.