Cable Telecommunications Act, Day 2 Part 2

The hearing focused on the effects of the Cable Act of 1984.

Mr. Fritts talked about the monopolies in cable. He said that the cable rates for consumers had increased 29% in the two years after deregulation and that cable is unregulated and unrestricted. He talked about his support for reregulating cable and that the legislation would be long term solution. He talked about the obstacles faced by telephone companies in providing broadcast video.

Mr. Padden disagreed with the classification of cable and argued that a better classification scheme would have labeled cable as a monopoly utility carrier rather than being a competitive medium of expression or a permutation of the two. He outlined the differences between ownership of conduit and content. He rebutted the testimony of Mr. Mooney. He said that vertically integrated multiple system operators (MSOs) disadvantaged other programmers in channel position. He talked about the “must carry” programs and the responses from the close