Cable Programmers Set To Storm FCC

By Paige Albislak and Bill McConnell
Broadcasting & Cable
November 1, 1999

If FCC commissioners and staff werenˇ¦t sure of cableˇ¦s position on digital must-carry, they will be now. A group of 25 top cable programming executives plan to meet with all five FCC commissioners this week to present their arguments, NCTA President Robert Sachs said at a Washington Metro Cable Club luncheon last week. Among those execs will be Weather Channel President and former head of the NCTA Decker Anstrom, A&E President Nick Davatzes, Disocvery's Judith McHale and Fox Family Channel's Rich Cronin. There also will be representatives from BET, Court TV, C-SPAN, E! Entertainment, Encore, Food Network, Game Show Network, Golf Channel, HBO, HGTV, History Channel, Lifetime Television, Odyssey Channel, Ovation, Oxygen Media, QVC and Turner. Sachs used his first speech delivered to a Washington audience to renew the cable industry's cry of "No! Never!" with regard to carrying both broadcasters' analog and digital channels during the transition to digital television. Sachs encouraged the FCC to delay making any decisions on the issue, although Cable Services Bureau Chief Deborah Lathen has said that she plans to send commissioners a staff report by the end of the year. "If a digital transition is to succeed, what we need is more marketplace experience." Sachs said, clarifying after the speech that with carriage negotiations ongoing and the digital transition only just beginning, more time is needed to see if market negotiations will resolve the must-carry debate. NCTA last week filed a white paper at the FCC, written by former NTIA Deputy Administrator Stuart Brotman. That paper finds that the large broadcast networks prefer to negotiate their carriage agreements with cable operators rather than opt for must-carry, Sachs said.