Following a statement released by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, he confirms the FCC has adopted rules concerning effective competition.
“We commend the FCC for its modest, sensible and pro-consumer action to update procedures for assessing effective competition. Consumers today enjoy the benefits of a rapidly evolving and increasingly competitive video marketplace that is offering a huge array of choices from cable, satellite, telco and Internet video providers. The growth in competition over the past two decades provides clear evidence that the effective competition threshold established by Congress has been met and surpassed in every DMA across the country. The very nature of the effective competition test reflects Congress’s preference that competition, not regulation, is the best way to promote innovation and consumer choice. The FCC’s common-sense action adopts a needed update of its procedures and rejects the self-interested fear-mongering of broadcasters whose sky-is-falling rhetoric is belied by both actual facts and the Commission’s own experience.”