FCC Chairman Kevin Martin's desire to impose a la carte mandates on cable operators is well-known. But his advocacy has always lacked specifics regarding how such regulation of the multi-channel video world would work in practice.

Ted Hearn of Multichannel News points to this fact in his article today, "FCC Chairman Vague On Capping A La Carte Prices: Martin Has Yet To Spell Out How Mandate Would Work." Ted notes that, "At least in theory, programmers could set a la carte prices so high that the only rational option would be the purchase of the bundle." Thus, Ted wants to know "how so-called wholesale a la carte mandates would be effective if the FCC won’t police the per-channel rates being sought"?

Excellent question, Ted, and one that all analysts who follow this issue want the Chairman to answer. After all, almost all the serious economists and Wall Street analysts who have studied this issue have reached a consistent conclusion: Unless you only subscribe to a few channels, your bill will likely go UP, not down, under a la carte regulation. [Here's a concise explanation of why that will be the case.] So, what's the FCC going to do if those prices start going up once their plan backfires?

This week in National Review Online, Cesar Conda and Lawrence Spivak ran an editorial entitled “Kevin Martin’s Pro-Market FCC,” arguing that the current FCC has generally been deregulatory and free market-oriented. Today, James Gattuso of the Heritage Foundation and I have set the record straight regarding just how off-the-rails this current FCC has really gone…
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November 29, 2007

TV Train Wreck
Martin, markets, and the potential for regulatory disaster.

By James Gattuso & Adam Thierer

Like cops shooing away onlookers at the scene of an accident, Cesar Conda and Lawrence Spivak argue (“Kevin Martin’s Pro-Market FCC”) that there’s no reason for conservatives to be concerned about the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Under Chairman Kevin Martin, they say, the FCC has been “characterized by a consistent pro-entry/pro-consumer welfare mandate, the very hallmark of economic conservatism.”

In other words: “Just move along. Nothing to see here.”

Despite Conda and Spivak’s exhortations, however, there is much for the curious crowd to see in the train wreck that is the FCC. The most recent derailment began earlier this month, when Martin leaked plans to invoke an obscure provision of the Communications Act, and to assert nearly unlimited powers to regulate cable television if more than 70 percent of households subscribe to cable.

New York Times business columnist Joe Nocera penned a lengthy column on the potential dangers of a la carte regulation over the weekend. He summarized why--as we have pointed out here before--despite the best of intentions, a la carte regulation is certain to backfire:

À la carte. It sounds so appealing, doesn’t it? Instead of having to accept — and pay for — all the channels bundled by your cable company, you could pick from a menu and pay for only the ones you watch. ... Yet as appealing as the idea might seem at first glance, there is a reason that Congress has not taken the bait and passed an à la carte law. À la carte would be a consumer disaster. For those of you who yearn for it, this is a classic case of “be careful what you wish for.”

Nocera goes on to show that, contrary to what a la carte regulatory advocates believe, prices for most customers would rise in the long-run:

I've written plenty here before about the potential pitfalls associated with a la carte regulation of cable and satellite television. What troubles me most about a la carte regulatory proposals is that proponents make grandiose claims about how it would offer consumers greater "choice" and lower prices without thinking about the long-term consequences of regulation. As I pointed out in a recent editorial in the Los Angeles Daily Journal, the problem with these regulatory activists is that "Their static view of things takes the 500-channel universe for granted; they assume it will always be with us and that it's just a question of dividing up the pie in different (and cheaper) ways." But as I go on to explain, a la carte regulation could bring all that to an end:

To understand why [it will harm consumers], we need to consider how it is that we have gained access to a 500-channel universe of diverse viewing options on cable and satellite. All of these channels didn't just fall like manna from heaven. Companies and investors took risks developing unique networks to suit diverse interests. Thirty years ago, few could have imagined a world of 24-hour channels devoted to cooking, home renovation, travel, weather, religion, women's issues, and golf. Yet, today we have The Food Channel, Home & Garden TV, The Travel Channel, The Weather Channel, EWTN, Oxygen, The Golf Channel, and countless other niche networks devoted to almost every conceivable human interest. How did this happen?

The answer is "bundling." Many niche-oriented cable networks only exist because they are bundled with stronger networks. On their own, the smaller channels can't survive; nor would anyone have risked launching them in the first place. "Bundling" is a means for firms to cover the enormous fixed costs associated with developing TV programming while also satisfying the wide diversity of audience tastes. Bundling channels together allows the niche, specialty networks to remain viable alongside popular networks such as CNN, ESPN and TBS. Bundles, therefore, are not anticonsumer but proconsumer.

If you're following the ongoing debate over efforts to mandate a la carte regulation for cable and satellite TV, there's an interesting piece in yesterday's Wall Street Journal entitled, "TV Channels Move to Web, Think Outside the Cable Box" [subscription only] that deserves your attention. Author Bobby White argues that "The Internet is offering a new outlet for voices -- including those of ethnic minorities -- that weren't heard from as much under old media." He highlights how the Black Family Channel and some other new networks that haven't found a home on the cable dial have decided to give it a go online instead:

Across the cable TV industry, other independent channels are also turning away from TV to the Internet. The Lime Channel, which focuses on healthy living, pulled out of cable last year and now offers its programming online and as video on demand. The Employment and Career Channel, which began streaming online in 2002, has junked its attempts to be a cable TV channel to be an online-only outlet. Others, like the Horror Channel and HorseTV (which revolves around equestrian events), have also opted to go online.

The shift illustrates how the Internet is offering a second chance to certain segments of old media. Web-based TV is now becoming a more viable business route, and Internet video is exploding. Running an online-only video channel, which doesn't require expensive cameras and broadcasting gear, is cheaper than operating a cable TV channel. While starting a new cable channel today takes an initial investment of $100 million to $200 million, a broadband channel needs just $5 million to $10 million to get going, says Boston-based research firm Broadband Directions.

Over at TCS Daily today, Derek Hunter points out why a la carte regulation is going to backfire for those who support it in the name of "cleaning up" cable and satellite television:

Smaller religious and family cable stations do not subsidize MTV, VH1, and other channels some people may find objectionable. Rather, the opposite is true, MTV, VH1, et. al, subsidize the small religious and family stations. By bundling them all together, it exposes the smaller channels to people who otherwise wouldn't choose them, netting them more potential customers. If providers were forced to offer channels individually, the small networks with few subscribers would fizzle out due to lack of exposure. Given the choice between channels, the majority of people would not pick those small channels, their potential audience would shrink dramatically, and less audience means smaller revenues. So that "solution" would actually make the problem worse.

That's exactly right and I discussed why a la carte regulation would have such unintended consequences in my December 2005 PFF paper, "Moral and Philosophical Aspects of the Debate over A La Carte Regulation." As I pointed out then:

It never ceases to amaze me what some people think they have a "right" to in this country. The latest example comes from the field of cable television where "rights inflation" has been spiraling out of control for years. Consider some of the things that people have claimed that they have "a right" to in the context of cable and satellite television over the past 20 years:

* In the 1980s and 90s, a great number of people claimed they had a right to cheap cable TV programming. As a result, the Cable Act of 1992 was passed imposing price controls on basic cable.

* During that same period, it was also argued that certain broadcast channels should have a right to reserve capacity on cable networks to distribute their programming. Consequently, "must carry" mandates were formally enshrined into law requiring it.

* More recently, a number of people are saying they have a right to cable television on any terms they wish including on a channel-by-channel, or "a la carte" basis, instead of as part of pre-packaged bundle of programming. Despite the fact that it could destroy the wonderful diversity of programming we see on TV today, Big Government liberals promote a la carte regulation under the guise of "consumer choice" while Big Government conservatives hail it as a worthy effort to "clean up cable." The end result is an unholy alliance that seeks to create a new "right" to unbundled couch-potato fare.

* Not satisfied that the push for a la carte regulation will go far enough (or perhaps fearing that it will not be passed into law), the "let's-have-government-sanitize-cable TV" crowd has also pushed for a right to "family-friendly tiers" of programming. Cable operators started "voluntarily" adopting such tiers late last year.

* Importantly, the reason the industry "voluntarily" adopted those family-friendly tiers was because they were threatened by far more serious censorship proposals from those who feel that have the right not to be offended by anything they see on pay TV. Proposals to extend broadcast indecency speech standards to cable and satellite systems have been seriously debated in the halls of Congress this session.

Could rights inflation get any more absurd? You better believe it. This summer, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has gotten all worked up over consumers' "right" to sports programming!

Just a link to some folks chatting about a la carte cable, a proposed "sports tier," the NFL and such.

Communications reform proposals winding their way through Congress all have something of a shotgun marriage feel to them. The pairing of franchise reform and 'net neutrality' has no purpose save for opportunism. The two issues have absolutely nothing to do with one another, and indeed work at cross-purposes to the extent franchise reform encourages competition and net neutrality stifles it at the broadband service level.
The most peculiar strange bedfellow provision lies in Senator Stevens's reform bill. The bill takes a proper wait-and-see attitude toward net neutrality, yet suffers from no such humility in dealing with local sports programming. Section 400, euphemistically titled "Sports Freedom," outlaws exclusive contracts between video providers and sports teams or leagues. The effect, then, is to unbundle local sports programming and make it available to all-comers. (Interestingly, a broader version of this rule would prohibit the Direct TV NFL Sunday Ticket, but the bill dare not go that far.) In other words, as with all programming rules, the bill dictates what private arrangements are permissible based on the unproven assertion that competition is impossible absent this unbundling.

Last week I outlined a few of my concerns with the FCC's new a la carte report. I was relieved to see that others are raising similar issues with the report.

For example, Fortune senior writer Marc Gunther published an essay today entitled "Why A La Carte Cable TV is a Nutty Idea." And Kansas City Star TV Critic Aaron Barnhart released an essay on Friday entitled "The Indecency Wars: Book II." Gunther and Barnhart share similar concerns about the new report.

First, Gunther and Barnhart agree that the FCC's report is remarkably ambiguous on several key issues. Gunther notes that:

"the FCC report is filled with so many 'mights' and 'coulds' that it's impossible to know whether unbundling would drive down rates. The FCC admits that it lacks data 'about what a la carte prices would be for individual networks.'"

Barnhart agrees and is even more scathing in his criticism of the report's ambiguity:

"If you actually read the report, you'll be amazed at how little [Chairman Kevin] Martin actually asserts as fact. There are a thousand "coulds," "mights" and "mays" the cumulative effect of which is to create the perception it has refuted the Powell report line by line. In reality, Martin's report has more fudge in it than Grandma's cupboard."

Ouch!