Courts Throw Out FCC Cable Market Share Limits
By Ed Oswald | Friday, August 28, 2009 at 2:25 pm
In a potentially huge victory for Comcast, the US Court of Appeals in Washington, DC threw out a rule limiting cable companies to under 30 percent of the market. The courts claimed that the FCC failed to take into account competition from satellite and fiber-optic providers when considering competition.
Comcast currently controls about 25 percent of the cable market, with about 23.7 million customers. With the law now vacated, the company will have an easier time looking for potential acquisitions to expand its reach.
The rule has an interesting history: it was first implemented in 1992 as part of an effort to control monopolization of the cable industry. The court declared the law unconstitutional in 2001, and had it set aside. That didn’t stop the FCC: in 2007, on a 3-2 vote it re-instituted the policy.
Analysts say that its unlikely that Comcast will acquire large cable operators, as there is not a significant enough benefit to doing so. However, with no roadblocks, the nation’s largest cable operator is pretty much free to get as big as it wants.
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August 29th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
*Potentially* useful for me, sitting as I do on a small bankrupt cable system. (Which is actually doing sort of OK these days.) We aren’t that far from Comcast territory (via the TCI gobble by ATT gobble by Comcast route) so who knows what might happen.
We also aren’t big enough to be even a round off error for Comcast overall share.
August 30th, 2009 at 8:33 am
It seems to me that the FCC has been doing a lousy job for years already. Their practices are unconstitutional like under the Bush administration. He has been one of the WORST presidents in history. Perhaps he is the worst president in history. Immoral, corrupt, crazed and unstable and as of a result of his actions we and our children will be suffering for many a decade. He never one the election, rather he was pushed through. Oh the corruption that goes on is REMARKABLE!