The Federal Communications Commission opened a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) today on how to reduce orbital distance between U.S. Direct Broadcast Satellites (DBS).

Under an international agreement reached in the early 1980s, the United States receives eight orbit locations for broadcasting-satellite service. Each location provides 32 analog channels; each assignment must be separated by nine degrees of longitudinal distance.

For about four years DBS providers and the FCC have been debating whether to ask the Commission to authorize "'tweener satellites"—orbiting stations separated by only 4.5 degrees of distance.

The Federal Communications Commission has rejected Time Warner Cable’s petition to permit them to suspend carrying National Football League (NFL) games on the cable systems that Time Warner recently acquired from Adelphia Communications.

"It is disappointing," the agency’s Order of Reconsideration concluded yesterday, "that just days after the conclusion of a proceeding in which commenters as well as Commissioners had expressed serious concern about the impact the Adelphia transactions would have on unaffiliated programmers, Time Warner chose to remove an unaffiliated network from former Adelphia and Comcast systems in a manner that apparently violated the Commission’s rules."

The Federal Communications Commission has ordered Time Warner Cable (TWC) to resume carrying National Football League (NFL) games, subject to expedited review. Time Warner discontinued the NFL Network on August 1, threatening cable viewers access to preseason games up and down the east coast on the eve of the season.

"It appears that Time Warner discontinued the NFL Network with essentially no warning to customers, thus not giving them sufficient time to obtain alternative MVPD [Multi-Channel Video Program Distribution] service so that they could continue to watch the NFL Network without interruption," the FCC ruled yesterday. "Such action by Time Warner was particularly harmful to customers given the time of year."

This latest skirmish over Time Warner's acquisition of some Adelphia cable assets exposes the tension between cable systems operators and content providers over pricing and carrying rules.

Time Warner Cable and Comcast acquired all of Adelphia Communications Corporation's assets in July. As part of a series of cable system swaps between the two companies, Time Warner took control of assets supplying millions of mid-Atlantic subscribers.

Cable and network television lobbyists are fighting for the last word as the Federal Communications Commission prepares to rule on whether cable companies have to accommodate the wave of new TV channels that will come with the analog-to-digital transfer.

In this corner are NBC, CBS, ABC, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), and a host of small outfits who want the FCC to pass a digital "must-carry" rule at their next Open Meeting, scheduled for Wednesday, June 21st.

In that corner are the cable companies and cable associations who insist that they wont be able to handle the volume of new "channels" digital TV stations will offer, thanks to digitals ability to compress data.

A little over a week ago the National Cable and Television Associations (NCTA) CEO Kyle McSlarrow told the FCC in no uncertain terms that digital must-carry is unfair, unworkable, and unconstitutional.

"Guaranteed cable carriage of every multicast stream of every broadcast station - without regard to whether it serves any viewer's needs or interests—serves no public policy purpose," McSlarrow wrote to FCC Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate on June 8th. "And it forces cable operators, who spent $100 billion upgrading their facilities in the last decade to provide their customers with the most desirable array of video, voice and data services, to set aside valuable channels for services that may have no appeal at all."

The Chair of the FCC today praised Congress for passing a law that will increase broadcasting indecency fines by a factor of ten—from the present forfeit of $32,500 to $325,000 per violation.,

The Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act sailed through the House of Representatives today by a vote of 379-35. The Senate had already approved the bill by unanimous consent. President Bush says he will sign the legislation.

"The Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act gives the Commission more tools to enable parents to watch television and listen to radio as a family," FCC Chair Kevin Martin said today. "In addition, I believe that concerns regarding content should be addressed in a comprehensive fashion by empowering parents to choose the programming that comes into their homes."

Proposal has diverse support

Dozens of newspapers around the United States are running an op-ed piece by FCC Chair Kevin Martin and Arizona Senator John McCain promoting "a la carte" cable—letting consumers decide for themselves which TV channels to buy.

"The solution to high cable bills isn't price controls or additional government regulation," they write. "It is more competition in the video marketplace and more consumer choice."

Martin and McCain want Congress to pass McCain's Consumers Having Options in Cable Entertainment Act (CHOICE). The bill, they say, "would help accelerate the penetration of new cable-service providers in our communities and would encourage the cable industry to offer channels individually or in smaller bundles."

The op-ed piece does not explain how exactly the law will accomplish this. In fact, the bill has yet to be introduced to the Senate or completely finished, a McCain staffer told LL-FCC this morning.

But this has not stopped Concerned Women for America (CWA) from endorsing it. CWA describes itself as a lobby dedicated to bringing "biblical principles to all levels of public policy." Yesterday the group praised McCain and Martin's proposal, saying that it will put "control back into families’ hands by giving them the most important tool of all: choice."

An FCC hearing in Texas about competition in video program delivery turned into a debate about deregulation as community activists protested a new law that gives the state government, rather than cities and countries, the power to regulate cable and video broadcasting.

The FCC Open Commission Meeting took place on Friday, February 10, in Keller Texas, where Verizon wireless has premiered its new FIOS (Fiber Optic Service) video/Internet service. Verizon and other telecom executives praised Senate Bill 5 (SB5), Texas's new law that takes franchising power away from counties and puts it in the hands of the state.

But Sharon King, of the Alliance for Community Media, told the FCC that implementation of the new law threatened public access programming. The Alliance represents 3,000 community stations nationwide. King charged that the day after the passage of SB5, the Dallas City manager caller her into his office, announced a 22 percent cut in her budget, and told her that unless new funds were found, Dallas Community television would be dropped.

"The Alliance is in favor of competition," King told the gathering. "But the FCC must be very careful in changing rules which have successfully provided the tools of democracy to our communities."