The FCC Media Bureau granted a petition Monday to...
The FCC Media Bureau granted a petition Monday to exempt Charter Communications from municipal rate-setting for basic-video and some other prices in 46 communities in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and New York, said an order posted in FCC docket 12-1 (http://bit.ly/1c1A4fm).…
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Charter’s petition cited video competition from DirecTV and Dish Network, the orders said. The Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable and the town of Berlin, Mass., filed objections to Charter’s petition, but the Media Bureau overruled both, the order said. MDTC had disputed Charter’s numbers demonstrating effective competition, but bureau rejected the utility’s arguments. Berlin had argued that Charter’s programming isn’t comparable to the direct broadcast satellite providers because the DBS providers don’t carry Berlin’s public, educational and government (PEG) channels. “We have repeatedly held that the absence of PEG channels from a competing service does not disqualify it from being comparable for purposes of determining effective competition,” said the Media Bureau order. The order affects about 200,000 people, including the communities of Worcester, Mass., Grafton, Mass., Brookline, N.H., and Austerlitz, N.Y.