PORTLAND, Maine—Cable subscribers in Maine won’t be able to handpick what channels they pay for, as the Maine Attorney General’s Office has dropped its defense of a 2019 law that would require cable TV providers to offer channels a la carte, as the Portland Press Herald first reported.

Shortly after the law was passed in Maine in 2019, cable companies filed a lawsuit against the state. Cable companies argued that the law violated their First Amendment rights of “editorial discretion” as programmers and cable operators.

In December 2019, a U.S. District Court judge issued an injunction against the law, preventing it from taking effect. This past February, a federal appeals court in Boston upheld the injunction.

After the February decision, the state of Maine and the cable operators filed a joint motion agreeing to resolve the lawsuit in favor of the cable companies. The motion was approved by the U.S. District Court, officially closing the case. The law can never be enforced or put into effect, the Press Herald reports.

No official word was given as to why Maine decided to concede its case.

“Maine has recognized that their programming law, which would have harmed consumers and independent and diverse programmers, is unconstitutional after court rulings that affirmed the First Amendment prevents states from declining how video content is sold to consumers,” a Comcast spokesperson said in an email. “The video marketplace is dynamic and consumers have more choices than ever before to view and buy programming. We’ll continue to offer our customers a wide variety of diverse channels, programs and packages and to compete with others in this vibrant market.”

State Rep. Jeffrey Evangelos told the Portland Press Herald that despite the bill, which he sponsored, failing, cable companies would eventually embrace an a la carte model as consumers move to streaming services.

The full story is available via the Portland Press Herald.  

PORTLAND, Maine—A Maine federal district judge has upheld a state law requiring cable operators to place public educational and government channels (PEG) in the basic tier and on lower channels in the vicinity of broadcast stations.

The law also requires cable ops to put the channels in program guides and retransmit them in HD if they are originated in HD. There was also a buildout requirement that operators "extend cable service to areas that have a population density of at least 15 residences per linear strand mile."

NCTA-The Internet & Television Association had challenged the law and was understandably unhappy with the decision.

“We are disappointed with the court’s ruling," NCTA said in a statement. "We continue to believe that Maine’s burdensome network build-out and PEG requirements conflict with federal law and should be preempted, and that the PEG mandates independently violate cable operators’ First Amendment rights. We are reviewing the ruling and considering next steps.”

In her decision, U.S. District Judge Nancy Torresen said that while there might be cases where PEG franchise requirements raise constitutional issues, this was not one of them. "[T]he Plaintiff has not met its burden of showing that the State’s PEG provisions infringe on cable operators’ First Amendment rights," she ruled. Instead, she said, "the State simply seeks to put PEG channels on equal footing with the vast majority of other channels" and to channel placements they had held before.

She said she agreed with the state that the PEG channel mandate was a consumer protection law and within its police power to respond to consumer complaints.

"The State, by requiring that PEG channels be placed near the local broadcast channels and on the basic tier, is exercising its police power to ensure that the PEG channels—considered vital to an informed citizenry—are widely and easily accessible," she wrote. "Anyone who has missed the first 10 minutes of a television program because she was scrolling through the channels in search of it knows that the process can diminish the quality of the viewing experience. As such, the channel placement requirements qualify as consumer protection."

As to the buildout requirements, the judge held that "because Maine’s municipal franchising authorities derive their power from the State, the Maine Legislature has the right to dictate the terms of municipal franchise agreements, including line extension requirements."

She did not say that all such extension requirements would necessarily be reasonable, but also said they were not all de facto unreasonable, as NCTA had argued, adding that cable ops could challenge such extensions on a case-by-case basis based on the individual fact record.

AUGUSTA, Maine—Another chapter in the story between cord-cutting and pay-TV/cable services is going on in Maine, as Comcast and a number of cable operators, including Fox, CBS and Disney, have filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against the state and 17 of its municipalities for a law set to be enacted on Sept. 19 that would require cable system operators to provide an a la carte option to customers. This story was first reported by Bangor Daily News.

Comcast and the other members of the lawsuit are saying that the proposed bill is preempted by federal law and are seeking a delay of the bill.

The bill, which would add the a la carte requirement to an already existing state law, was introduced by Rep. Jeff Evangelos (I) in an attempt to address the complaint that TV viewers must buy a cable package full of channels that they are not interested in.

This complaint is often credited as a key factor in the rise of cord-cutting, which has been particularly prevalent in Maine. A 2019 survey found that Maine residents cut the cord at a higher rate than all but 10 states.

“I want to watch the Red Sox, but I don’t want to watch [televangelist] Jimmy Swaggart, so I shouldn’t be forced to pay for that,” Evangelos argued.

The official lawsuit filed by Maine lobbyist Josh Tardy and Washington, D.C.-based lawyers for Comcast reads that the proposed law “would imperil the survival of many programming networks, particularly those serving niche audiences, thereby detracting from programming diversity and quality.”

Maine Public Advocate Barry Hobbins noted in a state document back in March that providers have previously been successful in arguing that such a la carte requirements were preempted by federal law. However, in a letter from the FCC to Hobbins, the commission says that there is no FCC ruling that addresses the a la carte issue and this law being preempted is “a question of first impression.”