FCC Chair Martin Attacks Cable For Fights With Sports Channels
By Eric Fisher, Staff Writer, SportsBusiness Journal
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Martin Blasts Cable Companies
For Feuds With Sports Channels |
FCC Chair Kevin Martin Friday took cable companies to task for their carriage fights on sports channels such as NFL Network and Big Ten Network. Martin asked after his appearance at the NBA Tech Summit in New Orleans, “Why is Comcast not equally concerned about forcing people to pay for Bravo as they are the Big Ten Network?” Martin: "The principle they’re advocating is good -- people shouldn’t be forced to pay for what they don’t want -- but the application is rather ironic. It should be applied across the board.” Martin used the NBA session and his meeting with reporters afterward to provide another impassioned defense of a la carte pricing for the cable and satellite TV industries, continuing to set up what promises to be a long battle with the industry. “Ultimately, consumers are going to demand greater control,” Martin said. “Consumers are very upset with their cable bills, and our surveys have shown that more than 75% want more control over their bills. This is not an unprecedented thing. We’ve already seen several variations of this in other countries. This is the right answer.”
RATES CONTINUING TO GROW: Long an advocate for an a la carte pricing structure in which consumers would pay for only the TV channels they want to receive, Martin testified before a House subcommittee February 13 that “we need to do something about ever-expanding cable rates,” citing figures in which average cable bills have risen from $22 per month in '96 to beyond $50 a month now. The comments provoked a quick and angry reply from the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, which said the comments were “deceptive” and “false,” failing to take into consideration inflation, the advent of services such as video-on-demand, or the addition of programming it argues has lowered per-channel rates.
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