Wisconsin Bill Would Create State Video Franchises

The AT&T-sponsored bill was introduced yesterday with some predictable ballyhoo about "competition" and "franchise reform."  We told you this was coming a few weeks ago.  This version is the harshest pro-provider and anti-consumer state-level bill yet.

The actual bill, which has yet to be assigned a number, would place jurisdiction over both cable and telephone video in the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions, which would then be specifically prohibited from enforcing any of the bill's provisions. The bill would kill most local access programming operations by cutting their funding, and it would eliminate the consumer protection functions of both local and state government. 

The bill is being pushed by AT&T, but the cable industry is sitting on its hands so it doesn't break out in applause.

I told the Milwaukee JournalSentinel:

"The two big losers," he said, "are the public and the cities."

Orton said the oversight of complaints under the new bill rests with the state Department of Financial Institutions, the agency that oversees banks and investment businesses. The agency's staff has no experience in overseeing telecommunications services, Orton said.

In addition, the bill forbids the agency from making any rules on the complaint process for video services and repeals existing requirements enforced by the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection and district attorneys regarding cable television subscriber rights.

"It's deliberate, so it would be an agency that doesn't do anything," Orton said of the choice of overseer.

Also, cities will lose revenue from the video providers because the method for calculating the 5% of revenue in the new bill eliminates some forms of revenue that are included under current law, Orton said.

Remember last month, when the east side of Madison and Sun Prairie had their cable die just as the Grammys came on?  And it turned out someone cut Charter's cable in Monona?   Current law lets customers get a refund upon request in such situations.  This bill would eliminate that right and let customers beg their provider for a refund.  The state and city could also beg.

UPDATE:  The Capital Times Jeff Richgels does his usual good job on this story, and I provide my usual over-the-top metaphors:

"When it comes to consumer protections, customers will be left out in the midwinter cold in their underwear," Orton added. "They had some kind of a T-shirt on but it will be gone. And the designated referee (DFI) has never seen a game in his life and is prohibited from blowing a whistle or calling time or penalizing any of the participants."

The Wisconsin Alliance of Cities' Rich Eggleston is no slacker with figures of speech either:

The bill stemmed from negotiations between cable companies, AT&T and members of the legislature, with local government excluded from the table, Eggleston said, adding that "when you're not at the table too often you end up on the menu."

- Barry Orton

Comments

[nonheroicvet]

Lets name names - who introduced this in the legislature and who are the legislators that did the negotiating? 2008 isn't that far off.

[John Foust]

I see a grave threat to public access channels. I've read the draft bill.

Yes, the bill says new video service providers (VSPs) will all face the same franchise fee tax as existing cable providers. This is the generally 5% tax they're allowed to put on our bills. The revenue goes to cities. Some use it to fund their public access stations. There's no requirement to do so. Many just use it for general tax relief.

Many small-town PEG (public, educational, governmental) channels will not be carried by the new VSPs. The bill says if a new provider supplies service via one feed to a group of small towns with an aggregate population of less than 50,000, they need only carry two PEG channels for the entire region. Even if the region is more than 50,000, it's only three. Many small towns have a city channel and a school channel. Who decides which stations will be carried?

The bill says they can drop the PEG channels from any service tier that is viewed by 50 percent or less of their subscribers. Won't they slice-and-dice to insure that no service tier is viewed by more than 50 percent?

The bill says they can drop "underutilized" PEG channels. The bill defines that as less than 12 hours a day of new, non-repeating programming, and 80% of it must be locally produced. No consideration for program sharing between regional communities. No definition of "locally produced". There go all the community announcement slideshow channels. I would think this would eliminate 95% of all state PEG channels. By the same definition, every ABC/NBC/CBS/Fox affiliate channel in the state is "underutilitized."

Even if they jump these hurdles, the bill requires PEG channels to pay for interconnection equipment compatible with each and every new VSP. This could be very complex and costly, perhaps even impossible, given a VSP's proprietary new technology. The easiest approach would have been for a station to give the VSP a standard video signal and let the VSP maintain their equipment for their network.

[Still choiceless in America]

LOCAL GOVERNMENTS “PROTECT THE INCUMBANT’S INVESTMENT”

“By managing the deployment as we do, we protect the incumbent’s investment in existing infrastructure, we protect the public from unnecessary disruption to private business and to their safe use and enjoyment of the public right-of-way, and we ensure that new entrants are provided with unfettered access in a reasonable and timely fashion, while ensuring that they comply with all safety requirements. This system has worked well for cable, traditional phone and other providers for many years, and is necessarily performed by the local government.”
– Arvada Colorado Mayor Ken Fellman’s Testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet Wednesday, April 27, 2005 (Fellman is also a cable franchise lawyer and VP at NATOA)

"PROTECT THE INCUMBANT'S INVESTMENT", YOU BET THEY DO, SO WELL THAT YOUR CABLE BILL SHOT UP 93% INCREASE (1995-2005 FCC source)

WHY DO THEY JUST JACK UP THE TV BILL

Comcast is raising the price of the average metro-area customer's cable bill by 6.9 percent starting March 1, yet they held the line on prices for high-speed Internet and phone services. – RMNews January 2007

THEY “PROTECT THE INCUMBENT’S INVESTMENT”, THAT MEANS NO COMPETITION. RESULT FOR YOU IS A 93% INCREASE IN YOUR CABLE BILL.

Comcast Profit Triples - Reuters, 2/1/07

How’s that for a double whammy – one week after Comcast announces a 7% increase for its captive cable customers, the cable monopoly announced record profits.

And as they rake in the cash and their executives get richer and richer, they fight every effort by their employees to get fair wages and benefits – all the while milking customers for everything they got!

As American Rights At Work found in a special report, wages for Comcast’s cable techs are a third lower than wages in traditional land-line telephone companies like at&t, where unions represent about three-fourths of the workers. Benefits are less generous and jobs are less secure, with annual turnover about twice as high.

Worse, Comcast fights tooth-and-nail to keep unions out, or decertify them once their in. Northwest Labor Press reports of a 37-page Comcast anti-union management training document that stated: “Comcast does not feel union representation is in the best interest of its employees, customers and shareholders.”

But it gets worse. Comcast is waging war against union employees – literally. During the AT&T days, unions made headway organizing in a handful of cities, including Beaverton, OR. But once Comcast acquired AT&T’s cable systems they began to systematically dismantle union shops…and show union workers the door. In Beaverton, Comcast vice president Curt Henninger made the company’s intentions crystal clear when he told commissioners in videotaped testimony: “I will tell you we are going to wage a war to decertify the CWA.”

Cable is anti-consumer & anti-competition

Legislators must send them the message that their days of pillaging customers and exploiting workers are over.

[WILL MULHALL]

It is just tv-video. Isn't this America? Can't companies compete and use the capitalistic system to determine a price for tv-video. If people want PEG why don't the schools and government ask the citizens if they want to pay a tax for this service? Now the system forces companies under the guise of a franchise fee to pay for these PEG channels. A franchise fee is just a tax. If the people are really watching these channels how much are they willing to pay for these channels. Let the people decide and not the government dictate to the people what they should get. It is not for the government to get in the way of tv-video services but rather to enhance business to come in and compete and help growth, with new jobs, not restrict it. I am disapointed how the local governments have come in and shown their true colors, greed,( in what is in it for me), and restricting competition, for personal gain. Very pathetic. And the local PEG channel employees are only worried about their jobs, (IT IS ALSO INTERESTING TO NOTE THAT THE PEG EMPLOYEES ARE USING THEIR PEG CHANNELS TO TELL THEIR COMMUNITIES TO VOTE NO ON AB207), I THINK THEY PROTEST TO MUCH. The communities can benefit from new jobs, and choices from competitive tv-video providers, let Americans be Americans and sit back and watch competition work.