No Tip 'o the Cap: Comcast Plays It Safe on Ownership

Give Comcast credit: It’s still filing semi-annual subscriber updates at the FCC, even though the DC Circuit Appeals Court discarded the Commission’s 30% cable ownership cap 6 years ago. The cap represented the percent of multichannel HHs a cable company could serve. Comcast still falls below the cap and says it will continue to do so after the Adelphia transaction. Its latest sub number is some 26mln, or 27.6% of all multichannel video subs. That reflects several tiny deals it’s made in the past few months. In Jan, Comcast picked up 180 CO subs from Denver Broadband, 619 CA subs from Guest TV and 158 CA subs from The Telecom Group. It gained 231 subs in MS from Advanced Media Com in Sept. Comcast sold a 75-sub CO system to Falcon Video in Dec. "Although it is unclear whether Comcast is obligated to notify the Commission of these transactions or their effect on its MVPD subscribers…, [it] is nonetheless providing the details of these transactions for the Commission’s convenience," the MSO said. What’s going to happen to cable ownership rules? In May, shortly after Kevin Martin became chmn, the FCC reopened a review of the discarded horizontal and vertical rules. The proceeding remains under review at the Media Bureau. Speculation is there won’t be movement until a 5th Commissioner is seated. The FCC sought comment on the rules in ’01, but never acted.