Category: Franchise Fees

As previously reported in BloggingBROADBAND, the City of Saline, Michigan recently sued Comcast over the payment of fees to support public, educational and government access programming. Under the provisions of Michigan’s new Uniform Video Services Local Franchising Act, … Continue Reading…

Cable companies have been announcing some really strong financial results for the third quarter. Many cable execs are attributing the results to synergies created through cable’s emerging “triple play” – the ability to sell cable, voice and high speed Internet services to a customer for one price on one bill.

Many local government officials don’t give too much thought to how the triple play affects local residents and the franchise fees that can be collected from a cable operator. This perspective is understandable. After all, franchise fees can only be collected on revenue derived by the cable operator from operation of the cable system to provide cable services. Since neither telephone nor high speed Internet services typically fall into the “cable services” category, there’s little reason, the theory goes, for local franchising authorities to get too excited about “non-cable” products the operator offers.

It’s starting to become clear, though, that this isn’t the whole story. Increasingly, there seems to be more evidence which suggests that the “triple play” has a subtle, but important impact on cable service revenue, too. Consider the following nuances:
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