Cable Television Rate Regulations

<RULE> FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Parts 1 and 76</CFR> <DEPDOC>[MB Docket Nos. 02-144; MM Docket Nos. 92-266, 93-215; CS Docket No. 94-28; FCC 25-33; FR ID 301311]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Cable Television Rate Regulations</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Communications Commission. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In this document, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) eliminates unnecessary cable rate regulation forms and rules; deregulates cable equipment not used exclusively to receive the basic cable service tier; deregulates small cable systems serving 15,000 or fewer subscribers that are owned by small cable companies serving 400,000 or fewer subscribers; declines to extend rate regulation to commercial establishments; and modifies rules to account for the sunset of CPST regulation and clarifies their application. This action is necessary because many of the FCC's rules governing cable rate regulation have been rendered obsolete or unworkable due to the sunset of cable programming service tier (CPST) rate regulation and the passage of time. In addition, in this document, the FCC closes several moot proceedings and dockets which are either resolved by this document or have become obsolete or irrelevant due to regulatory updates, technology advances, marketplace changes, or have been addressed in other FCC orders. The actions taken in this document by the FCC will have the effect of streamlining the cable television rate regulations, unleashing prosperity through deregulation, and reducing the administrative burdens on the cable industry, franchising authorities, and the FCC, while continuing to fulfill the statutory obligation to subscribers to ensure reasonable rates for cable service and equipment. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Effective August 13, 2025, except the amendments to §§ 1.1204 (amendatory instruction 2), 1.1206 (amendatory instruction 3), 76.911 (amendatory instruction 5), 76.922 (amendatory instruction 6), 76.923 (amendatory instruction 7), 76.934 (amendatory instruction 10), 76.944 (amendatory instruction 15), and 76.990 (amendatory instruction 21), which are delayed. The FCC will publish a document in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> announcing the effective date. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For additional information on this proceeding, contact Katie Costello, Policy Division, Media Bureau at <E T="03">Katie.Costello@fcc.gov</E> or (202) 418-2233. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This is a summary of the Commission's Report and Order, in MB Docket Nos. 02-144; MM Docket Nos. 92-266, 93-215; CS Docket No. 94-28; FCC 25-33, adopted on June 26, 2025 and released on June 27, 2025. The full text of this document is available via FCC website at <E T="03">https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-25-33A1.pdf.</E> The full text of this document will also be available via ECFS <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/cgb/ecfs/</E> ). (Documents will be available electronically in ASCII, Word, and/or Adobe Acrobat.) To request these documents in accessible formats for people with disabilities, send an email to <E T="03">fcc504@fcc.gov</E> or call the Commission's Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau at (202) 418-0530 (voice), (202) 418-0432 (TTY). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Synopsis</HD> <E T="03">Introduction.</E> This Report and Order streamlines the cable television rate regulations in Part 76 of the FCC rules. Many of the FCC's rules governing cable rate regulation have been rendered obsolete or unworkable due to the sunset of CPST rate regulation and the passage of time. In 2018, the FCC initiated a rulemaking to review and update its rate regulations, 83 FR 60804. This Report and Order deregulates cable equipment not used exclusively to receive the BST; deregulates small cable systems serving 15,000 or fewer subscribers that are owned by small cable companies serving 400,000 or fewer subscribers; declines to extend rate regulation to commercial establishments; modifies §§ 76.980 and 76.984 of the FCC's rules to acknowledge the sunset of CPST regulation; revises and simplifies the process for cable operators to establish an initial regulated rate after becoming subject to regulation; modifies and simplifies the inter-tier channel movement rules to account for the sunset of CPST regulation; clarifies the instructions for calculating interest in Module H of Form 1240; and eliminates unnecessary forms and rules and terminates several open dockets. <E T="03">Background.</E> Section 623 of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, 47 U.S.C. 543 (the Act), requires the FCC to ensure that rates for the basic service tier (BST) are reasonable and that regulations are implemented to achieve the goal of protecting subscribers of any cable system that is not subject to effective competition. Section 623 also requires the FCC to establish rate regulations for the installation and lease of equipment used to receive the BST on the basis of actual cost. For cable systems that are not subject to effective competition, section 623 permits local franchising authorities (LFAs) to apply the FCC's rules to regulate the charges for the BST and the installation and lease of cable customer premises equipment used by subscribers to receive the BST. To implement section 623, the FCC adopted rate regulation rules, beginning in 1992, that continue to serve three basic functions: setting initial BST rates, updating those rates, and setting equipment rates. The FCC developed a common set of tier-neutral benchmarks and regulations so that the same methodology was to be used to set rates for BST and the CPST. However, in 1996, Congress added a sunset provision applicable to the regulation of all tiers of cable service except the BST. <E T="03">Equipment Regulation.</E> This Report and Order updates FCC rules to limit cable equipment rate regulation to equipment that is used by BST-only subscribers to receive the regulated BST and any additional per channel or per program services, but that is not used for any unregulated tiers of cable service. The FCC retains the requirement to apply the actual cost standard to equipment used to receive the BST, but the FCC no longer believes the statute supports continued rate regulation of equipment used by subscribers to receive CPSTs, in light of the statutorily mandated sunset of CPST regulation, which includes equipment used to receive a CPST by definition. The result is that BST-only subscribers will continue to pay a regulated price for equipment whereas subscribers to the non-regulated CPST will receive an unregulated price for equipment. <E T="03">Small System Deregulation.</E> This Report and Order exempts from rate regulation small cable systems serving 15,000 or fewer subscribers that are owned by small cable companies serving 400,000 or fewer subscribers. Consequently, the Report and Order eliminates rules establishing alternate methodologies for small systems as well as the Form 1230. The FCC previously identified unique qualitative characteristics of small systems owned by small cable companies that differed from larger systems, and found that the larger cable companies had higher revenue and a greater number of subscribers per mile, making it easier to attract the financing and investment necessary to maintain and improve service. The larger systems also were better able to absorb the costs and burdens of regulation due to their expanded administrative and technical resources. The Report and Order finds that the benefits of regulating small systems owned by small cable companies do not outweigh the potential of placing an inordinate hardship upon smaller cable companies in terms of labor and other resources that must be devoted to ensuring compliance. The FCC thinks consumers will benefit from deregulation by allowing these small systems to better attract the financing and investment necessary to maintain and improve service. The FCC agrees that it has ample legal authority to grant relief to small systems. The Report and Order is consistent with the Act, including section 623(i), which requires the FCC to reduce the administrative burdens and costs of compliance for small cable systems, and also section 623(m). This action will encourage investment in small companies, rely on the marketplace for setting rates for small systems owned by small cable companies for the foreseeable future, and ensure small systems owned by small cable companies will be able to fully recoup investment in expanding their systems. Thus, exemption from rate regulation for these small systems, and elimination of associated forms, provides needed regulatory certainty and reduces potential significant administrative costs. <E T="03">Non-Residential Service Regulation.</E> The Report and Order concludes that the FCC's rate regulation rules apply only to residential customers. Thus, cable services offered to non-residential subscribers, such as retail stores and restaurants, are not subject to the FCC's rate regulations. In limiting rate regulation to cable service and equipment provided to subscribers in households and not non-residential establishments, the Report and Order notes that the FCC, in applying the test for effective competition, has determined that the term household means occupied housing units. The Report and Order finds that using the term occupied housing unit, as the FCC has interpreted it in the effective competition context, to distinguish residential from non-residential subscribers provides a bright line and allows a clear distinction between regulated and unregulated services. The Report and Order defines residential subscribers as subscribers residing in an occupied housing unit, such as a house, an apartment, a m ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 98k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━