Verizon Communications says the FCC should charge higher regulatory fees to satellite TV companies DirecTV and Dish Network in order to put them on par with other pay TV services, Multichannel News reports. Congress established regulatory fees that fund 100% of the FCC’s operations, but in a recent filing Verizon says “parity does not exist among providers of video services.” In a breakdown of the numbers, DirecTV has been paying 7 cents per customer while Dish only 5 cents. Cable operators, however, have been paying about 80 cents per subscriber for years. Dish and DirecTV tell the FCC that a uniform fee system could create a “false parity,” the trade says.
—Sergio Ibarra