News
The NCTA delivered a lengthy brief to the U.S. Appeals Court in D.C., which is evaluating the FCC’s latest attempt to limit any single MSO to 30 percent market share. The NCTA brief backs a separate brief submitted by Comcast.
The FCC first attempted to impose the cap in 1993, and it’s been repeatedly slapped down by the courts. The only company now even close to the cap is Comcast.
The essential argument in the brief – signed by the NCTA, Bright House Networks, Cablevision, Time Warner Cable and several regional cable trade groups – is that the court gave the FCC explicit instructions on how to justify a cap, and that the FCC, in its latest attempt to impose the cap, has entirely failed to comply with those instructions.
In the brief, the NCTA summarizes the court’s argument that market share does not equate to market power, and that it is market power that can be abused. If the FCC does not demonstrate market power, it is unjustified in setting a cap on market share.
The NCTA brief says that in trying to re-impose the 30 percent cap, the FCC once again relied only on market share as a justification.
The NCTA adds that since the courts last ruled on the subject, in 1999, cable operators have come to face even more competition, and therefore have even less market power than before.
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