WASHINGTON — Landlords often enter into exclusive deals with cable companies, leaving apartment dwellers with about as much say in who provides their pay television as they do in their building's color -- that is, none.
Now federal regulators are poised to invalidate those contracts as soon as Wednesday in hopes that competition from phone companies that are rolling out TV services will drive down prices.
Consumer groups support the move to strike down the deals and have joined Federal Communications Commission officials in complaining about rising prices for cable TV. They want to give phone companies and smaller cable operators a chance to compete.
"People who live in apartment buildings deserve to have the same type of competition and choices as people who live in suburbs," said FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin, who is pushing a plan to strike down the deals. "I'm optimistic that if you have additional competition, you'll have lower prices."
Supporters said Martin's initiative would help minorities and the poor, who are more likely to live in apartments.
But some people worry that the plan could backfire.
Building owners complain that the price of pay TV will go up because they will lose the clout to negotiate deals with providers. And some minority groups worry that without the lure of exclusive contracts, companies won't extend service to low-income communities in the first place.
"You prevent the apartment owner from playing one provider off against another to get the best possible price and the best possible service," said Jim Arbury, senior vice president of the National Multi Housing Council, a trade group representing large-building owners, managers and builders. "The people aren't going to get the choice the FCC thinks they're going to get."
The cable industry is fighting the proposal. Industry executives say that they have invested millions of dollars to wire apartment buildings based on exclusive contracts and that voiding them would be unjust, if not illegal.
"That's not fair, plain and simple," said Dan Brenner, senior vice president of law and regulatory policy for the National Cable and Telecommunications Assn., which represents the major cable companies. The cable companies don't have a problem with prohibiting new exclusive contracts, he said, but they believe the FCC shouldn't invalidate existing ones.
