NCTA Board Chairman Glenn Britt Says Consumers Benefit From Marketplace Competition

NCTA Board Chairman Glenn Britt Says
Consumers Benefit from Marketplace Competition

Washington, D.C. – The cable industry operates in a mature, competitive and thriving marketplace that provides the best form of regulation because it has resulted in increased investment, introduction of advanced consumer services, and more focus on meeting customer needs, said Glenn Britt, Chairman and CEO of Time Warner Cable and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA), in remarks today to the Washington Metropolitan Cable Club.

Britt said the cable industry’s $75 billion investment to upgrade its networks and launch new broadband services is a shining example of how an industry has responded to increasing competition by investing its own capital to meet competitive threats head on.

“I believe competition is the best form of regulation,” Britt said. “It requires us to innovate, to keep our eye fully on the consumer, and to sharpen our marketing and customer care skills.”

American consumers are the biggest beneficiaries of this competition and investment because they now have an unprecedented number of programming choices and benefit from industry initiatives to make cable more consumer friendly, speed the digital transition with the roll-out of high-definition television, and improve customer service and convenience, Britt said.

Britt said previous efforts to impose greater regulation on cable hurt both cable companies and consumers. He noted that capital investment dried up after the Cable Act of 1992, but took off following enactment of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

“Cable operators have invested over $75 billion to upgrade plant and facilities since the 1996 Telecommunications Act,” Britt said. “We have made a large and positive impact on the communities we serve. It’s hard to think of another industry that has had this kind of sustained, widespread impact financed totally with private risk capital.”

Despite the lessons of the past and the obvious success of marketplace-based competition, some parties are once again calling for regulation, Britt noted.

“History has demonstrated time and time again that regulations and legislation, no matter how well intended, are imperfect tools,” Britt said. “Too often, they can lead to unintended consequences. Sometimes, those consequences can exacerbate the very problems that regulators seek to remedy.”

While one form of regulation that has been discussed – government-mandated a la carte pricing – sounds consumer friendly and easy to implement, Britt said the end result could drive some networks out of business and push consumer rates higher so cable customers would pay the same or more per month to get less programming choices.

Instead of turning to government-imposed solutions that might harm consumers, the cable industry should adjust business models to reflect today’s business realities and filter decisions through “the screen of consumer needs,” Britt said.

“There are lots of opportunities for growth by using technology to invent new services and new business models for the delivery of entertainment and information in new, convenient ways,” Britt said.

NCTA is the principal trade association of the cable television industry in the United States. NCTA represents cable operators serving more than 90 percent of the nation's cable television households and more than 200 cable program networks, as well as equipment suppliers and providers of other services to the cable industry.

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