Federal court rejects Maine law that required unbundling of cable TV channels

(The Center Square) – A federal appeals court has struck down Maine’s “à la carte” law requiring cable operators to give customers the option of subscribing to individual channels.

The ruling, issued Wednesday by the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, effectively upholds a previous injunction by a federal judge who blocked the law from going into effect.

In its ruling, the appeals court accepts the lower court’s determination that the law may be unconstitutional and that state is unlikely to succeed if the case went to trial.

“In sum, we conclude that the district court correctly determined that Chapter 308 triggers heightened First Amendment scrutiny because it ‘singles out’ cable operators,” the court wrote in its 23-page ruling. “The state has acknowledged that it cannot meet any heightened level of scrutiny on this record.”

Maine passed the law in 2019, which requires cable operators to offer their subscribers the option of buying cable programs and channels individually, rather than bundled together in a channel or package of channels. Lawmakers passed the measure in response to rising cable bills, seeking to give consumers options besides costly bundled services.

Several cable companies, including Comcast, Disney, Fox Cable and NBC/Universal, filed the lawsuit challenging the new law. A U.S. District Court judge granted a preliminary injunction preventing the law from going into effect last year. Maine appealed the decision.

In court filings, Comcast and other cable operators argued they would have to spend large sums of money overhauling ordering, distribution and billing systems to comply with the law.

The new law would violate existing contracts with programmers that prohibit à la carte offerings, lawyers for the companies argued, forcing the contracts to be renegotiated.

The New England Cable and Telecommunications Association, a trade group that represents Comcast and other cable providers, applauded the ruling, saying the new law “would have meant limited choices and higher prices for consumers.”

“Today, consumers have an unprecedented array of competitive options for accessing high-quality, flexible video products, including on an à la carte basis,” NECTA said in a statement. “Moreover, the statute was focused solely on cable operators and did not impose any similar requirements on any of cable’s traditional or Internet-based competitors.”

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