Cable Television Franchise Agreement By And Between: Fill & Download for Free

I’m not sure why they aren’t more scrutinized for anti-trust behaviors in general, and specific to Internet access services. About 80% of US households have one “broadband” option.Traditionally cable TV was the alternative to satellite TV, or OTA (over the air) broadcasts. Data was not in the picture then. The franchise agreements were formed around this time. With data becoming (maybe not legally) a “utility” service since, one would think things should change now. But they really haven’t. What I would like to see happen is competition, but that is really, really expensive. Google Fiber is one of the only “over-builders” in this area. There are some municipal networks now too, small in scale.What is interesting about competition is, Comcast and a collective of cable and telco companies form groups/organizations that lobby and fight off this competition (“overbuilders”). They try to pass state laws that prohibit municipal investments in a fiber network, or even Google Fiber from expanding, etc. And, for whatever reason, this is not considered anti-trust (eg, “cartel”) behavior.It’s not that it (the cable industry) started out a cartel, but with data services they have effectively become that in my eyes (and Netflix, unofficially Google and others). There were hundreds of cable networks, now there are 4 or 5 large ones, who bought up the rest. And they don't compete with each other. This is the definition of cartel per the Sherman Act. It's just not clear IF or what collusion is involved between them as far as setting prices, packages or terms (caps). But like I said, they do form "anti-competition" groups.Probably factoring in their lobbying efforts, they also are able to set (their own) data caps, and speed and general performance standards. No regulatory board is doing that. Other than some very low (basic) customer service requirements (franchise agreement contracts), they are not really regulated when it comes to data offerings. The FCC is trying (Title II), but of course the cartel is fighting that in the courts. And congress is watching the show, if they even are aware there is a show.The latest franchise agreements no longer provide exclusivity, but that was not the case 5 and 10 years ago. Hence, Comcast claims anyone can compete… come and build. They then complain about other things, how they pick the service areas, how the municipalities are involved, etc. Basically, they want competition to compete is ways that cannot work, cannot scale. Using old, 1980’s telco models. The Internet has changed things, except for the grandfathered companies.Another similar/related concept is how the FCC manages RF spectrum, and more specifically how the broadcast TV providers were granted rights back in, I think the 30's and 40’s, to broadcast television. Keep in mind, the airwaves are public domain/property - a public resource. At the time, there was little infrastructure and ability for the government to propagate information (news, Presidential addresses, PSA, etc). ABC, NBC, CBS and like were given an awesome resource, for peanuts. They now reap huge profits off of these resources. Times have changed, it’s time for us to use that RF spectrum in more efficient and better ways. It belongs to the people. The people can get better use, at the expense of loss of some free entertainment. And forcing the companies in question to change, evolve.

Comcast is not a monopoly; any other cable company con legally acquire a cable TV franchise in the same geographic area. Every cable TV franchise agreement I ever saw in my 30+ years in the cable TV industry claimed that the franchise was not a monopoly, and that any other cable company could apply for a franchise.However, it is not economically possible to operate two cable TV systems in the same geographic area. Doing so would double the construction cost but the revenue needed to amortize those costs would be cut in half.Furthermore, as others have noted, there are other options: Dish Network, DirecTV, and streaming.That said, there are a few places in the USA where two cable systems coexist. One such situation that comes to mind is in the northern suburbs of Wheeling, West Virginia. The area is squeezed between the Ohio River on one side and by mountains the other side. It is impossible to receive any television stations off-the-air. So, collectively, the two cable companies are guaranteed close to 100% penetration.The first cable system in the area "Centre TV" was the only way to receive any TV service for many years. It served almost 100% of the residents.Several years later Comcast "overbuilt" Centre. Comcast has since taken some customers away from Centre, but a majority of subscribers have stayed with Centre. Perhaps for sentimental reasons (support the home team), or because Comcast offered the same channels that Centre offered.

Generally speaking, they don’t. I know your bill may seem to tell you differently, but the “franchise agreement” (between your local Cable company and the City, County, or State government) governing authority usually establishes limits on how much the Cable company can increase rates.Looking at some of the other answers to this question, it seems that many people unfortunately buy in to the notion that “Cable is Evil!”. I half believed it myself before I went to work for a cable company and learned some surprising facts.This culture is not new. It got it’s start in the 1960’s, back when there was only one (1) Phone Company serving pretty much the entire USA. If you didn’t like the way The Phone Company did business, well, then guess what? No dial tone for you! So—quite naturally—a consumer culture arose in response to these monopolistic abuses, wherein, if you didn’t hate The Phone Company, you were considered to be Not Quite Right, not smart, and maybe not a Real American either.Decades later, Cable companies’ competitors (satellite and—ironically—The Phone Company) spent billions on marketing in an effort to grow the same kind of hatred for Cable. Which is hypocritical and silly, as I’ll explain below.At the end of the day, a Cable company is like any other business: Its revenues must exceed its costs for it to remain economically viable. Some costs are relatively fixed, while others can vary significantly from year to year and sometimes even from month to month.Barring natural disasters or major franchise-wide technology upgrades, the costs of equipment, network infrastructure, and labor are—at least on a macro level—mostly fixed.The single largest recurring cost incurred by an entertainment provider—as well as the one subject to the most variance—is the cost of content (i.e., the money the Cable company must pay to content owners for the legal right to offer that content to their customers).It is very important to note that the above paragraph holds true regardless of whether your provider is Cable, Satellite or Telco fiber (e.g. Verizon FiOS). These rates are usually re-negotiated at 3- to 5-year intervals, and nearly always come with an increase in costs to your provider over time.It is here that the concentration and consolidation of content ownership in the hands of fewer and fewer powerful media corporations becomes particularly corrosive. Here’s an example:The Walt Disney corporation not only owns the Disney Channel, but also ABC, all the ESPN networks, and many others. And if you believe that Disney won’t do everything they possibly can to leverage that ownership power and thus maximize profit, I have some swamp land in Florida to sell you.Carry agreements are usually not made at the franchise level but at the corporate level (e.g., Disney doesn’t deal with the various Cox-run systems nationwide, but with Cox corporate in Georgia), and those agreements are seldom—if ever—as simple as “Pay us X dollars per year for the right to carry our channels for the next five years”.Back in the early 2000’s the contract between Disney & Cox was coming up for renewal and Disney decided to play hardball. Their initial contract proposal was more or less this:—”Pay us 10% more for our channels next year, and an additional 10% more each year for the next five years”.—”No you may not not break out the ESPN/ESPN2 channels into a separate Sports Tier so that people who don’t care about sports don’t have to pay for sports.”—”No you may not make ESPN/ESPN2 a premium subscription service; you must put our channels in your Expanded Basic lineup.”[Note: nomenclature may vary by company, but “Expanded Basic” is usually the tier of service where you find most of the channels that are neither broadcast (ABC/CBS/NBC) nor premium (HBO, Starz). This would generally include channels like AMC, TNT, HGTV, Discovery Channel, History Channel, Disney, and ESPN/ESPN2. It is often the single most expensive group of channels your local Cable company has on offer].and—”We (Disney) also get to charge you (the Cable Company) a fine for each one of the subscribers in your footprint that opts-out of Expanded basic service. Like we were a government…which we sort of are. muwahahaha))))))).”Naturally Cox found these terms to be more than a little onerous and unfair , and so they pushed back, basically saying:“No, Disney, you can’t have it both ways—either slow down the rate increases or else let us break those channels out so that only those who want them will have to pay for them”Disney was incensed—after all, how dare a Cable Company defy their mighty brand? They decided to take their case to the people, running a lot of print, video and radio ads accusing Cox and other cable companies of “trying to take your sports channels away”. This was disingenuous because in reality Cox was not interested in doing anything of the sort—they were mainly trying to hold the line on value for their customers—nothing more.Fortunately for everyone (except Disney), Cox won that battle, and for most of the ensuing 6 years did not need to raise their rates.This may sound unbelievable to many people, but most Cable companies don\’t raise rates simply “because they can”, but because they have to. They hate having to raise their rates because television is an emotional medium, and they know that they—not Disney or whomever—will be the “messenger” who “gets shot” when an increase in content cost forces a corresponding increase in rates. Raising rates is de-stabilizing and causes customers to flee. All things being equal, your Cable company would rather not to raise their rates most of the time.