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DAVID CONNELL
Though the margins were thin, the likely prospect of Republicans controlling both the White House and Congress should have the cable industry licking its chops.
At presstime, Presidential election results were uncertain, although George W. Bush was expected to gain majority of electoral college votes. But even while looking at a president more likely to sign deregulatory legislation and new leadership at the FCC, some industry insiders were downplaying the amount of change the next four years could bring in terms of policy.
Some say the election will mean little to the industry, others fear legislative gridlock, and a few say Bush will be able to reach across party lines to get some real work done.
"I don't think this election means much of anything for the cable industry," Steve Effros of Effros Communications says. "We might have a more sympathetic chairman at the FCC, but I don't want to pigeonhole anyone in Congress."
Effros notes that several high-ranking Republican members of the Senate, including Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., have indicated they would be in favor of passing legislation that would make open access a national policy.
And while a Republican-controlled Congress and Federal Communications Commission could overturn or drastically change cable ownership caps that limit the number of multichannel video subscribers that operators can serve, that could prove difficult, especially if an influential Democrat from the House Commerce Committee decides to block a cap change.
"I don't see a lot of push behind a cap change," a source says. "Trying to undo an established policy requires a lot of wheeling and dealing. You have to be really willing to give up a lot" on other legislation.
Several representatives and senators lost their seats on the Commerce and Judiciary Committees, meaning there will be some new faces addressing the concerns of the industry next year.
In the Senate Commerce Committee, John Ashcroft, R-Mo., lost a closely contested race to late Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan, whose seat will be taken by his widow.
Sen. Spencer Abraham, R-Mich., also lost a close race to former House Rep. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich. Both Ashcroft and Abraham also sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee, meaning there will be two new members of the GOP on that committee as well.
Neither Abraham nor Ashcroft sat on the Antitrust Subcommittee, which has the most direct influence over the industry, but Abraham was a fairly staunch supporter of cable and spoke in support of the America Online Time Warner merger.
On the House side, several representatives gave up their seats on the Commerce and Judiciary Committees this year, with the most conspicuous retirement coming from Commerce Chairman Tom Bliley, R-La.
Bliley's chair is now seen as a race between Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La., and Mike Oxley, R-Ohio, with some on the Hill predicting Tauzin, who has a higher profile than Oxley, as the front-runner. However, some Republicans continue to express bitterness that Tauzin was allowed to leapfrog some senior Republicans when he switched parties.
Californian Republicans Brian Bilbray and James Rogan lost their seats in the House Commerce Committee, and Rogan also gave up a seat in the Judiciary Committee. Reps. Rick Lazio, R-N.Y., and Ron Klink, D-Pa., lost seats on the Commerce Committee when they left for Senate runs, and Rep. Bill McCullum, R-Fla., left the Judiciary Committee for a Senate run.
With Bush in the White House, the cable industry can expect a presidency that will generally be less concerned with industry regulation than the Clinton/Gore administration.
However, he does not have the knowledge or experience of Gore when it comes to the FCC and telecommunications policy.
Bush did not discuss any cable issues throughout the campaign and his advisers offered only cursory glimpses of what a Bush presidency might mean for the cable industry.
Bush is expected to make more conservative appointments to the FCC and current commissioner Michael Powell, a relative moderate and son of Colin Powell, has been named to the short-list of potential Bush nominees to the FCC chairmanship, along with Texas Public Utilities Commission Chairman Pat Wood.
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