FCC closes loopholes in cable program access rules

WASHINGTON (AP) — Cable TV companies will no longer be able to use a federal loophole to withhold sports networks and other popular programming that they own from satellite providers and other rivals.

The Federal Communications Commission voted 4-to-1 today to close the so-called "terrestrial loophole" in a 1992 federal cable law.

Under that law, a cable TV provider must let competitors carry any channel it owns if satellite connections are used to transmit the channel to the individual cable systems around the country. Until now, the provision didn't apply when cable operators sent programming over land-based networks instead.

Satellite providers and phone companies that offer subscription TV services complain that big cable operators have exploited that quirk in the law to deny them access to must-have programming, particularly regional sports networks.

Cable companies have been using the loophole to keep San Diego Padres games off AT&T Inc.'s U-Verse video service and Philadelphia sports teams off DirecTV Inc. and Echostar Corp.'s Dish Network satellite systems, for instance.