In Cable Fight, FCC's Martin Stumbles Again

More proof that F.C.C. chairman Kevin Martin is possibly the worst office politician in Washington:

Martin's push to expand the agency's regulatory power over cable TV exploded in his face yesterday as his fellow commissioners accused him of basing his case on skewed data.

Democratic commissioner Jonathan Adelstein -- whom the Republican Martin had originally considered an ally in the effort -- charged Martin with using "cherry-picked" numbers to argue that cable penetration has exceeded a critical threshold beyond which the F.C.C. is allowed to step in. The so-called 70/70 rule permits the agency to take action to safeguard "diversity of information sources" once 70 percent of U.S. households have access to cable, and 70 percent of those households actually subscribe.

Martin, who had been hoping to win a major victory in the face of furious lobbying by the cable industry, was instead forced to delay the vote by several months while new data is gathered. "[T]he fight showed that he had lost considerable support from both Democrats and Republicans both at the commission and in Congress," says The New York Times.

Interestingly, Martin's position in the cable fight -- he wants to force cable operators to let subscribers pick and choose what channels they want to buy -- puts him on the same side with some of the groups that are leading the opposition to his other major initiative: rolling back the ban on cross-ownership of a newspaper and a TV or radio station.

That effort has also run into trouble: Next week, the Senate Commerce Committee will consider a bill that would effectively kill Martin's plan to usher in a change to the cross-ownership rule by the end of the year.