Old, but left unreported: FCC to do away with terrestrial loopholes?

Back on January 20th of last week, the FCC held a meeting with a vote that would eliminate the “terrestrial loophole” in television broadcasting. That vote ended in a 4-1 landslide against the law created back in 1992.

The Federal Communications Commission voted 4-to-1 on Wednesday to eliminate the so-called “terrestrial loophole” in a 1992 federal cable law, which requires cable operators to give competitors access to cable-owned programming that is transmitted using satellite connections. Until now, the provision didn’t apply when the cable operators send those programs over land-based networks instead.

Back in 1997 when Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia replaced PRISM, Comcast decided to keep the sports channel off of satellite television so they’d have a bigger draw for customers who wanted to see Philadelphia sports. A smart business plan, but those who wanted to save money on their television service stayed with their satellite providers. This left tons of people without their fix of Philadelphia sports, because CSN Philadelphia wasn’t an offered channel on their service.

While it’s not widely available in the North East, Verizon’s FIOS service has been offering CSNPhilly – as well as the other CSN regional channels – since the service launched.  There are a large number of residents living in areas without any type of cable provider, so satellite TV is their only reasonable option for television, so this will come as excellent news to them.

The change hasn’t been made official and there is plenty of work to be done in the court room, so I can’t even predict when this will happen. The good news is, Comcast’s days of strangling their customers appear to be over, and that’s the good news here.