Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 3, 1992 TAG: 9203030283
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DANIEL HOWES BUSINESS WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Rep. Rick Boucher promises that competitive rates and better service soon would come to the cable television industry if only broadcasters would cut a deal with the telephone companies eager to enter the cable business.
Broadcasters "can't get on their own what every broadcaster says he must have - another source of revenue" from cable companies that want to carry the broadcast programming, says the Abingdon Democrat.
Cable companies across the country - including those in Western Virginia - now pull broadcast signals off the airwaves, distribute the programming through their cables and charge consumers. Broadcasters receive no compensation.
Broadcasters - the companies that own the networks and their local affiliates - want that to change.
So the National Association of Broadcasters is pushing a bill, passed by the Senate in January, that would reregulate the cable TV business and guarantee payments from local cable companies to broadcasters - such as WDBJ-7 and WSLS-10 in Roanoke and other network affiliates.
That's not what Boucher, Congress's fast-rising expert on telecommunications, wants to hear. Legislation he's pushing would let telephone companies such as C&P Telephone Co. into the cable TV business. Experts say that would lower cable TV rates, increase consumer choices and give Americans a fiber-optic communications network to carry voice, data and video over the nation's telephone lines.
"The time when [broadcasters] come on board is when they see they will not get what they want standing alone," Boucher said during interviews last week in his Capitol Hill office.
"I think they're better off helping to write the rules allowing the telephone companies to enter the market rather than just sitting back."
When it comes to telephone companies and the cable TV business, the Virginia lawmaker is more than a congressional gadfly.
Boucher's ponderously named Communications Competitiveness and Infrastructure Modernization Act has become "the Boucher Bill," gaining the five-term representative widespread attention from his colleagues, as well as nationwide media attention.
The bill would allow telephone companies to provide cable television and other video services, bringing competition to the unregulated cable industry. Permitting phone companies into the cable business would hasten their planned conversion to fiber-optic cable, which is necessary for high-speed voice, data and video transmission.
Cable operators steadfastly oppose Boucher's bill, saying the powerful and wealthy phone companies would themselves squelch competition - and simply replace one monopoly with another.
And the cable operators say safeguards built into the Boucher bill to protect consumers and competitors would be ignored by the phone companies, which are frequent targets of consumer complaints and accusations of rate shenanigans.
Yet, Boucher's hope that broadcasters will align themselves with the telephone companies may prove too optimistic, some say.
Rep. Mike Oxley, the Ohio Republican co-sponsoring the bill, thinks broadcasters need to be careful that they don't appear to be teaming up with the telephone companies against their cable colleagues.
Broadcasters think they will be able to wrangle payments from cable companies without having to cut a deal with the telephone companies. Boucher disagrees. If they join forces with the telephone companies, he said, "that's it, we win. That's all it takes."
But that "if" may prove very large. The broadcasters' group appears intent on pursuing a reregulation bill - even though some of its members apparently support Boucher's push for an alliance with the telephone companies.
Few players - save, perhaps, Boucher - are willing to predict how the largest communications debate to roil Washington in years will play out. Boucher has powerful allies in many of the nation's telephone companies and the Bush administration, which supports a pro-competition solution.
But that may not be enough - especially in an election year.
Worse, some House aides say, lawmakers still are reluctant to give the telephone companies access to cable and information services, a possibility fiercely opposed by many of the nation's newspaper publishers. And, the high-tech issue does not appear to have caught the attention of voters more concerned with the economy and their job security.
by CNB