DirecTV, Dish: FCC Shouldn't Hike Regulatory Fees

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Satellite operators have told the FCC that it would be wrong to charge them a per-sub regulatory fee along the lines of that charged for cable operators.

The FCC supports itself entirely through those fees, which it charges based on how much employee time is taken up with filings, applications and other work related to a particular service. DBS operators currently pay per satellite license rather than per sub.

The National Cable & Telecommunications Association has been pushing the FCC to make the change, and the commission proposed doing so in a September Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, while asking a lot of questions about how it could justify the change and how it should be made.

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John Eggerton
John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.