At the Portals

Comcast was once again denied by the FCC. Late Tues, the Commission announced that it is upholding the Media Bureau’s Jan decision to deny the MSO’s request for a set-top integration ban waiver. Comcast said it will now turn to the courts. One positive takeaway for Comcast was that Commissioners Jonathan Adelstein and Robert McDowell—while voting with the majority— did criticize the FCC’s “inconsistent and arbitrary application of the waiver standard to applicants.” They questioned why some video providers were granted waivers covering the exact same boxes for which Comcast sought waivers. Under the FCC’s set-top integration ban, cable providers who did not receive waivers had to stop deploying boxes with integrated security (ie, no CableCARDs) as of July 1. — FCC chmn Kevin Martin told members of Congress that it’s too soon to tell whether private equity ownership of media properties has a negative impact. He made the comments in a letter responding to questions from Reps John Dingell (D-MI) and Ed Markey (D-MA). Martin said the Commission would monitor the role of private equity and “consider whether certain changes to our attribution rules may be warranted.” The Dems’ questions stemmed from deals such as Univision’s sale to a group of private equity firms and Verizon’s sale of a HI phone company to the Carlyle Group.