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from: Leader Telegram

Pull the plug on cable bill
Updated: 5/27/2007

The issue: The state Legislature considers a bill supporters say would increase cable competition.

Our view: The bill is deeply flawed. It would strip local control, harm public access channels - and there's no guarantee cable rates would drop.

Competition in the marketplace, conventional wisdom tells us, is a good thing. It boosts efficiency, increases consumer choice and drives down prices.

For consumers steamed about their cable TV service, the chance to boost competition would seem overwhelmingly positive. So what's wrong with a bill supporters say would bring new TV options to Wisconsin communities?

Plenty, it seems. Enough, in fact, that lawmakers should drop the current effort and start over without the largest telecommunications company in the U.S. - AT&T - breathing down their necks.

The central problem with the so-called Video Competition Act is it would strip local governments' ability to negotiate with cable companies. Currently, cities such as Eau Claire reach franchise agreements with cable companies, requiring the companies (in this case, Charter Communications) to pay fees to the city in exchange for permission to dig up the public right-of-way to lay cable and serve as virtual monopolies. These funds are used to pay for city services, including public, educational and government (PEG) channels, such as Community Television in Eau Claire. In some cases, cities (including Eau Claire) require additional PEG fees, allowing their public access stations to provide extra channels and services.

Under the bill, extra PEG fees would be phased out in three years. And franchise fees to public access channels would shrink, too, in part because cable providers would strike agreements with the state, not individual cities. This continues a troubling state trend of stripping money and power from the level of government most responsive to citizens.

As a result, Eau Claire's CTV would lose nearly 60 percent of its funding within three years, which could mean the end - or at the very least the severe curtailment - of CTV's two stations. CTV televises government meetings live and offers candidate interviews and other local civic and cultural programming. CTV and similar channels statewide are a welcome breath of nonprofit localism in a cable TV landscape dominated by commercial-choked networks and countless shopping channels.

Furthermore, the three-year clock to eliminate PEG fees begins ticking as soon as the bill is signed - not when competitive cable arrives. In other words, CTV funding would be decimated in three years even if AT&T and other potential providers avoid Eau Claire and instead invest their efforts in larger, more lucrative markets.

But what about costs? The argument that opening the door to increased competition will inevitably lower consumers' cable bills is flawed. In recent years, satellite dishes have proliferated on local roofs, presumably putting the squeeze on traditional cable companies. Still, cable rates have risen.

If state lawmakers truly want to foster competition, they would focus their efforts on encouraging small, locally owned cooperatives to provide cable TV services. This has happened with success in some rural areas, notably Barron County.

There are other things not to like about the bill. Most notably, AT&T has hired a veritable army of 16 lobbyists to push it through the Legislature, among them former state Sen. Joe Wineke.

Wineke is chairman of the state Democratic Party, a job that should keep him busy enough. That he also should carry the water of a huge, out-of-state corporation should anger voters who want political figures as divorced from corporate pockets as possible. And Democrats deserve a spokesman who advocates party ideals such as standing up for the little guy and supporting local control, not one who twists party members' arms to vote for a bill that mainly benefits out-of-state behemoths.

- Tom Giffey, editorial page editor