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Home arrow Video Savant arrow Weekly Rewind: FCC Chairman Picking Cable TV Fight?
Weekly Rewind: FCC Chairman Picking Cable TV Fight? Print
Written by Video Savant   
Saturday, 17 November 2007

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin told the New York Times last weekend that he believes the cable television industry is now subject to increased regulatory scrutiny under the so-called 70/70 rule. This 1980s-era provision kicks in when cable television becomes available to more than 70 percent of homes nationwide, with 70 percent of those capable of receiving it actually subscribing to it.

I'm not a statistician, but it's difficult to understand how this regulatory wrinkle has suddenly come into play in a pay TV environment where cable television's market share has progressively shrunk in light of satellite TV gains over the past decade. And now there's even more competition to cable TV, with the arrival of teleco TV providers such as Verizon and AT&T.

Don't look now, but no one is running to the defense of Chairman Martin's prototype pocket calculator-cum-time machine.

More interesting is the speculation that Martin's 70/70 talk is designed to provide leverage that would aid him in making another run at mandating an "a la carte" pricing system onto cable TV providers -- "a la carte" would allow consumers to select and pay for only the channels they wish to view.

Although Martin has said he's not focusing on "a la carte," the 70/70 saber-rattling is widely viewed as an attempt to gain leverage over the cable industry in this and other upcoming regulatory battles.

Martin: FCC Has More Power to Regulate Cable  [Broadcasting & Cable]
FCC Head Questioned on Cable TV Data  [Financial Times]
Kevin Martin Doesn't Hate Cable, He Just Loves Ma Bell  [DSL Reports]

In other news this past week: A suit has been filed against Comcast in light of its alleged "filtering" of certain types of Internet traffic generated by its ISP subscribers... The FOX Television network is suggesting that FCC-mandated public service announcements regarding the upcoming change to digital broadcasting may be illegal and unenforceable... ZDNet is reporting that YouTube plans to begin offering HD video during the first quarter of next year...

Home Theater Magazine presents test findings that show when it comes to detail in moving images, not all 1080p HDTVs are created equally... Congress is preparing an education funding bill that includes a provision that could result in federal funds being withheld from universities that fail to provide education and paid alternatives to illegal file-sharing of music by its students... Warner Home Video said it has no current plans to issue dual-format Total HD discs...

Sony is reporting that sales of its beleaguered PlayStation 3 gaming console have doubled following recent price cuts... Netflix still wants to improve its "suggestions" algorithm, but say no one has achieved the 10% accuracy improvement needed to claim the $1 million prize it's offering... And whatever happened to George Jetson and all the cool Jetsonian home conveniences we expected to be using by now?

Read these and all of the rest of the past week's interesting home entertainment developments by picking and clicking through the news summaries below.


Broadcast & Pay TV

Comcast Sued For Traffic Shaping  [Techdirt]
Cox Also Disrupting P2P Traffic  [DSL Reports]
Verizon's DNS Policy May Be Bad, But It's Not A Network Neutrality Violation  [Techdirt]
Fox News Channel Critic Opens Second Front for a la Carte  [Broadcast & Cable]
Is DIRECTV Taking HD Subs From EchoStar?  [TV Predictions]
Comcast, Cox Planning Multi-Room DVR  [DSL Reports]
Qwest Still Wishy Washy on IPTV  [DSL Reports]

Digital TV Transition

Fox Says Mandated PSAs Would Be Illegal  [Broadcasting & Cable]

HDTV Programming

YouTube HD Coming Within 3 Months  [ZDNet]
HDNet to Stay on DirecTV's Total Choice for Now  [Engadget]
DirecTV Adds 23 More HD Channels  [Multichannel News]
Biography HD Nets DirecTV Deal  [Multichannel News]
Survey: 45% Prefer Football on HDTV  [Multichannel News]
Season 2 of "Metropolitan Opera: Live in HD" Kicks Off Soon  [Engadget]
An Idea For DirecTV  [Multichannel News]
HDNet: Last Call for True Music  [TV Predictions]
Ed's View - CNBC HD+ No Cigar  [HDTV Magazine]

Display Technology

Are You Getting All of the HDTV Resolution You Expected?  [Home Theater Magazine]
Price Becomes the Critical Factor in LCD TV Market  [iSuppli]
Corning Lifts Outlook on LCD Demand  [Wall Street Journal]
Sony's XEL-1 OLED TV Pre-sales Begin in Japan  [Engadget]
Canon to Acquire Tokki, Accelerate OLED Display Development  [Tech-On!]
LG's 52LG71 LCD TV Boasts WiFi for HD Streaming  [Engadget]

Copyright and Digital Rights

Anti-P2P College Bill Advances in House [ZDNet] 
Independent Film Makers Thrilled That People 'Pirated' Their Movie  [Techdirt]
Russia Continues To Use 'Piracy' As An Excuse To Silence Critics  [Techdirt]

HD Disc Wars

Warner Says No Plans for 'Total HD' Disc Releases  [ISF Forum]
European Blu-ray Chairman Calls HD DVD Group's Actions "Unbelievable"  [Engadget]
DVD Player Sales Sinking, No One Surprised  [Engadget]
New Free Blu-ray Offer From Sony  [High-Def Digest]
Black Friday High-def Player Deals  [Engadget]
Consumer Reports Rates Blu-ray, HD DVD Players  [High-Def Digest]
Nielsen VideoScan High-Def Market Share for W/E Nov 11  [Engadget]

Video Games

Sony's PS3 Sales in US More than Double Since Price Cut  [Engadget]
PS3 Sales Surge in Japan  [IGN Complete]
DivX Support Coming to PS3, Xbox 360 Support in Works  [ars technica]
Guitar Hero III Wii Missing Stereo, Surround Sound Support  [ars technica]
PS3's Birthday Party Gets Cake, But No Games  [Gizmodo]
More PS3 Firmware (2.01) Imminent  [Kotaku]
Valve Hardware Survey Shows Vista Slowly Gaining Ground with Gamers  [ars technica]
TiVo Alert: Discovery Airing 'Rise of the Videogame' Nov 21  [Joystiq]
Hollywood Goes Gaming  [Kotaku]
Singapore Lifts Mass Effect Lesbian Ban  [Kotaku]

Home Entertainment Retailing

Netflix Prize: Close, but No $1 Million Cigar  [New York Times]
Sony Enters High-End Cable Game  [Gizmodo]
Best Buy Store Busted Lying About Wii Availability  [Kotaku]

Odds and Ends

Meet George Jetson  [Wall Street Journal]
'Virtual Theft' Leads to Arrest  [BBC News]
Schools Give Lesson in Prohibition, Black Markets, Smuggler's Premium  [Reason]
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