ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, May 15, 1990                   TAG: 9005150492
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

COMPETITIVE CABLE TV MARKEY DIDN'T DEVELOP

IN A RECENT column, James J. Kilpatrick supported the cable television industry's monopoly status and warned against government intervention on behalf of the consumer. Unfortunately, it appears that Kilpatrick obtained most of his facts on this issue from the industry's trade association, the National Cable Television Association.

To understand why Congress is seriously considering legislation on this issue, one has to review the faulty assumptions made by witnesses before Congress when they were considering deregulating cable TV in 1983 and 1984.

The president of the NCTA at that time, Tom Wheeler, promised Congress that "every street will have two wires. Every household will have a choice between two systems." Other witnesses promised that within a year, consumers would be able to get cable-type service directly off high-power satellites with roof-mounted satellite dishes the size of a kitchen platter. Congress accepted these promises of a competitive market for pay TV and passed the 1984 Cable Deregulation Act.

As any cable subscriber can tell you, this competitive market did not develop. After deregulation, cable TV raised rates. Cable then took these extra profits and invested heavily in the programming services that any pay TV system must have to be in business (Showtime, CNN, the Discovery Channel, etc.). After cable TV operators gained control of the pay TV programming channels, they made it very difficult or impossible for competing delivery systems to gain fair access and/or fair prices for these channels.

Possible competitors such as home satellite dishes, wireless cable, over-the-air pay TV, and even second full-service cable systems found it nearly impossible to compete with entrenched operators.

The proposed legislation in the Senate is a compromise between re-regulation and competition. If competition exists within a community, and a certain percentage of consumers subscribe to other forms of pay TV delivery than the main cable system, then there will be no governmental regulation oversight and the free marketplace system can follow its natural course.

In communities where competition does not yet exist, the Federal Communications Commission and/or local cable oversight boards will be allowed to ensure that cable operators are charging a fair price. The legislation will also end the blatant wholesale price discrimination that allows cable operators to charge higher prices for programming to competitors, and even deny them access to some channels. THEODORE N. OUIMETTE JR. MONETA 


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