The FCC today started taking comments for the next report it will prepare on competition in the satellite market, and the cable industry responded promptly, again requesting that the FCC assess fees on DirecTV and Dish Network commensurate with the fees the FCC levies on every other MVPD.
The agency has a budget of $340 million a year, and the money comes from fees on companies the FCC oversees.
DirecTV and Dish Network have argued that they are not subject to such fees, so far successfully. The cable industry, through both the NCTA and the ACA, have never found the arguments of their DBS competitors compelling, and have been petitioning the FCC for years to assess fees on the two.
The FCC does assess some fees on DirecTV and Dish, but none to support its Media Bureau, the agency’s office that manages affairs having to do with MVPDs.
According to ACA president Matthew Polka, “The FCC should ignore Dish and DirecTV’s meritless claims and use its ample legal authority to adopt a revised regulatory fee structure that would assess DBS fees at the same level as cable and IPTV in a revenue neutral manner. It is long past time to end the competitive disparity that the current regulatory fee structure perpetuates. Satellite TV operators should pay more and cable and IPTV should pay less.”
By law, the FCC cannot raise its overall budget by raising fees; if it charges additional fees to the DBS companies, it would be obligated to lower fees it levies on other companies.
The FCC is supposed to prepare and publish reports on satellite competition annually, but since the directive was issued in 2005, the agency has not been able to keep up given its other duties, which include annual reports on competition in the video and broadband industries, all of which include highly contentious issues that have dragged out for years. The satellite industry report the FCC is embarking on will be its fourth. The third report covered the years 2008-2010, and was published in 2011.
AT&T proposes to buy DirecTV. The FCC is currently evaluating whether or not to approve the merger.
