The Federal Communications Commission voted Friday to eliminate requirements that cable operators maintain at their local office a current listing of the cable television channels that each cable system delivers to its subscribers. The agency also dropped a rule that certain cable operators make their channel lineup available through their FCC-hosted online public inspection file.
Cable operator websites post channel lineups and the information is available through other sources, including program guides and paper listings, the agency said. Cable operators are still required to send channel lineup details to subscribers at least once per year and make the information available on their websites.
ACA Connects, representing small- to mid-sized operators, praised the change.
"Eliminating these requirements is a fine example of ‘clearing the regulatory underbrush,’ which the FCC’s Media Modernization proceedings are designed to promote," ACA president Matt Polka said in a statement.
