Audio Video News

Apartment tenants and owners are about to get new video-delivery options, thanks to the Federal Communications Commission.

Urban cable TV subscribers have long suffered from what amount to building-by-building monopolies. Their landlords, co-op boards, or tenant associations cut exclusive deals with cable operators. Then the hapless tenant must do business with that company or do without. The hardship is especially great for tenants whose apartments don't receive a usable broadcast TV signal. But all that's about to change, thanks to a forthcoming FCC ruling.

According to The New York Times, the FCC is poised to kill those thousands of exclusive cable contracts, effectively creating competition in urban TV-delivery service. This is a victory for smaller cable companies, satellite operators, and most of all AT&T and Verizon, whose ongoing slugfest with the major cable ops will now move on to a new battleground.

"Exclusive contracts have been one of the most significant barriers to competition," FCC chair Kevin Martin told the Times, noting that cable rates have risen 93 percent in the past decade.

One-quarter of Americans live in large multi-unit apartment buildings, so the ruling will affect a massive number of cable subscribers. But will the change result in lower rates for low-income (and other) households? Consumers Union, among other consumer groups, thinks so. Frankly, I'll believe it when I see it. An oligopoly is often no better than a monopoly.

The National Cable & Telecommunications Association, pretty much as you'd expect, called the FCC move "unlawful and, as a matter of public policy, wholly inappropriate and counterproductive." Cable operators point out that the exclusive deals often include major capital improvements to the infrastructure serving buildings.