DBS Interests Push Back Against Regulatory Fee Parity, Rate Hikes
Hiking the regulatory fees paid by DBS operators while cutting those paid by cable operators is baseless, DBS operator representatives told aides to Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Mike O'Rielly, according to a docket 18-175 posting Thursday.…
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The DBS interests said the FCC hasn't said how the set-top box and independent programming proceedings, both dormant for more than a year and yet cited by the agency as justifying the increased fees, increased Media Bureau FTE workloads enough to justify higher DBS fees, while also decreasing the bureau's workload for cable operators enough to justify rate cuts. They also argued a push for regulatory fee parity between cable and DBS would run against Congress' statutory command that regulatory fees correlate to the costs of regulating payers, since the regulatory burdens from cable and DBS are sizably different. The American Cable Association is pushing for regulatory parity (see 1808230016).