Today’s dynamic and competitive video marketplace provides consumers with a growing array of choices for their provider and a robust lineup of new interactive services to choose from.  More than 32 million consumers now subscribe to cable’s competitors – including Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS), alternative broadband providers like RCN and the nation’s two largest telephone companies.

Despite this competitive environment, the FCC in late 2007 adopted a 30 percent cap on “horizontal” ownership which limits the number of video subscribers that one company can serve.

However, in 2001, the U.S. Court of Appeals soundly rejected on First Amendment grounds the precise cable ownership cap that the Commission adopted.  The Court of Appeals found such a cap to be unjustified and out of touch with the competitive marketplace as it existed six years ago. In the intervening years since the Court’s 2001 rejection of the 30 percent cap, competition among satellite, telephone and cable companies and the variety and amount of independent programming has only increased.

Examining the Issue

• Regulatory Filings

Regulatory Filings

Email this Document

Email this Document

Email this Document