On the list of Most Beloved Organizations, your local cable provider probably falls someplace between the Internal Revenue Service and KFC. Federal Communications Commission Chair Kevin Martin is apparently no fan of cable companies either, and recently he had some tough questions for twelve of the nation's leading providers.
Earlier this week, the FCC launched an investigation into the cable industry's pricing practices and financial motives behind the imminent analog-to-digital switch.
"We are asking why some companies have taken steps to require customers to pay higher cable prices after the digital switch for the same channels that they received through analog signals previously," Martin told Reuters.
The investigation will focus on Bend Cable Communications, Brighthouse Networks, Cablevision, Charter Communications, Comcast, Cox Communications, GCI Company, Harron Entertainment Company, RCN Corporation, Suddenlink Communications, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon FIOS. The FCC charges that these cable providers' practice of moving already available analog basic cable channels to exclusively digital tiers forces subscribers to purchase a new cable box or more expensive package, effectively making subscribers pay for the same service twice.
Brian Dietz, a spokesman for the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, described the investigation as "perplexing," adding that "the [FCC's] actions are clearly contrary to [their own] policies encouraging the roll-out of new digital services."
The FCC are not the only ones irritated about having to take out a second mortgage just so they can catch the new episode of Mad Men. On October 29th, Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports, directed a letter of complaint on behalf of cable subscribers to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. The letter stated: "We fear large cable companies, like Comcast, have been adding to their bottom-line by inappropriately reaching into the pockets of their subscribers. With the DTV transition quickly approaching, consumer confusion in the television programming market is at its peak."
According to a survey of cable customers conducted by Consumer Reports, 68 percent of subscribers have analog service, while 19 percent of those people have noticed that they have been receiving fewer and fewer channels. Of that 19 percent, a majority said they have done nothing about the problem while 21 percent have paid for extra equipment in order to retrieve the lost channels.
The day after the Consumers Union letter was sent, the FCC sent out a "Letter of Inquiry" to leading cable providers. The letter, which is posted on the Commission's website, claims that the FCC has "received information indicating that [the cable provider in question] may have moved certain analog basic or expanded basic channels to a digital tier, making such channels unavailable to analog subscribers unless they obtained a Company-supplied digital box and/or subscribed separately to [the cable company's] digital programming tier." The cable companies have been given two weeks to respond to the letter.
Not often in its history has the FCC been seen as the good guy - just ask Howard Stern. With Martin expressing his concern to USA Today that cable companies are causing "consumer confusion" and forcing customers to "spend the same amount of money to get less," we might actually be seeing good government in action.
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