Cable about to be investigated by the FCC...

[Justin23]

This was interesting reading:

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/orl-cable0708nov07,0,6953680.story

My fave quote from the article: "Ever-increasing cable prices is one of the most significant issues consumers face today," FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said in a briefing with reporters this week. "They are getting less and being charged the same or more."


J

[njblackberry]

Guess old Kevin hasn't looked at the rest of the economy.

Good to know that the FCC is staying on top of things.

[phrelin]

I really don't know who the FCC and Congress planned would pay for the cost of cable digital conversion, OTA digital conversion, etc. I fully expect them to mandate satellite carriers to carry all the digital subchannels a station offers if the carrier carries the primary sub-channel and then investigate why Dish and DirecTV are trying to recover the cost of the 10 extra satellites and associated uplink equipment. The FCC should be offering government grants for the capital expenditures along with rate regulation if they wanted to avoid the cable companies trying to find ways to increase revenues.

I'm still waiting for OTA pay boxes to appear to descramble subchannels. Then watch the network owners shift desirable programming to their combination subscription fee - ad supported "cable channel" subsidiaries which the OTA stations will offer on their digital subchannels.

[James Long]

The FCC should be offering government grants ...Uh, you do know where the government gets it's money?

We can either pay the upgrade costs via rates or via taxes. I doubt if the via taxes rate would be any cheaper in the long run.