In Re Staff
Authorization To Grant Cable Television Relay Stations and Business Radio
Stations Transfer Applications From Time-Life Cable Communications to American
Television & Communications Corp.
FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION
43 F.C.C.2d 983
NOVEMBER 6, 1973.
JUDGES:
DISSENTING OPINION OF COMMISSIONER NICHOLAS JOHNSON TO ATC
-- TIME-LIFE CABLE TV MERGER
OPINION:
[*983] On August 2,
1973, the Commission authorized the staff to grant the applications for authority
to transfer a number of cable television relay stations and business radio
stations from Time-Life Cable Communications to American Television &
Communications Corp. Commissioner Johnson dissented to the authorization
and has now issued the attached statement.
DISSENT:
DISSENTING OPINION OF COMMISSIONER
NICHOLAS JOHNSON
The Cable Bureau responds to one of
the largest mergers in the still youthful cable industry by presenting to the Commissioners,
for their "information and/or discussion," some pending
"applications for Commission Consent to the transfer of five Cable
Television Relay and Business Radio Station authorizations..:"
This seemingly routine item casually
goes on to advise the Commissioners that the American Television and
Communications Corporation (ATC) is also about to acquire Time-Life Cable
Communications (except for its New York City area franchises).
ATC is the fourth largest cable
television company in the U.S. It currently holds over 100 operating
cable companies (108 at last count) already serving 315,000 subscribers.
The full potential number of subscribers for these systems is unknown.
The number of additional franchises for which ATC is now competing is unknown.
What is known is that the Commission
has today approved ATC's acquisition of Time-Life cable. Time-Life has 11
systems (8 in operation; 3 more franchises) with over 45,000 current
subscribers. Potential subscribers for these 11 systems are unknown.
The acquisition is valued at
$11,000,000.
The infant cable industry is very
rapidly coming into the mold of the conventional American oligopolistic pattern
-- where imitation rather than innovation comes from "competitors,"
and inflation rather than price competition greets the consumer.
[*984] The FCC has
already created monopolies and oligopolies in two of its other major regulated
industries -- telephone and television. (The 15 network-owned stations
gross roughly half of the revenue of the country's 800 television stations --
in addition to the network's earnings from networking and other conglomerate
enterprises.) But those industries have taken 50 years or more to reach their
current status.
It is shocking that an infant
industry like cable television, which has scarcely begun to toddle under the
FCC's broadcaster-protective cable regulations, has already made such strides
toward oligopolistic status.
At our Commission meeting discussion
of this item, I made a formal motion that the Commission at least ask the
Department of Justice if it might possibly have any antitrust objections to
this further reduction in cable competition. The disinterest of the
Commission in antitrust issues is reflected in the startling fact that such a
motion could not even garner a second.
The Cable Bureau didn't even think
the matter warranted a formal Commission statement. It recommended that
it "proceed with the grants at the staff level." The Commissioners
agreed.
The "five cable television
relay and business radio station authorizations" presumably have by now
been granted. The cable industry has grown more restrictive. The
Justice Department has not been heard from.
It may be business as usual, but I
dissent.