Before the
                Federal Communications Commission
                      Washington, D.C. 20554

City of Bedford, Ohio           )
                                )
v.                              )
                                )
Telerama, Inc.                  )
d/b/a/ Cablevision              )
                                )
Motion for a Declaratory Ruling and)
Petition for Special Relief     )

                                 
                  MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

       Adopted:  June 7, 1999           Released:  June 9, 1999

By the Chief, Cable Services Bureau:

I.   INTRODUCTION

     1.   The City of Bedford, Ohio filed a Motion for Declaratory Ruling and Petition for Special
Relief ("Motion") on July 13, 1998, in which it contends that Telerama, Inc. d/b/a/ Cablevision ("Cablevision")
violated Section 622 of the Communications Act, 47 U.S.C.  542, by refusing to pay to it a separate cable
franchise renewal application fee as required by the City of Bedford Ordinance No. 6964-97.  For the reasons
discussed below, we shall decline to rule on this Motion.

     2.   City of Bedford Ordinance No. 6964-97 provides that an applicant for a cable franchise must
remit an application fee to the City.  The City of Bedford states that Cablevision challenged the application
fee on the grounds that the application fee is a franchise fee governed by 47 U.S.C.  542 and is not the type
of fee that falls outside of the definition of the term franchise fee.

II.  DISCUSSION

     3.   Section 622 of the Communications Act defines the term franchise fee and lists several
exceptions to that definition.  In re Amendment of Parts 1, 63 and 76 of the Commission's Rules to Implement
the Provisions of the Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984 ("Memorandum Opinion and Order"), the
Commission discussed its authority to entertain jurisdiction over franchise fee disputes.  In the Memorandum
Opinion and Order, the Commission stated that "given our recognition of the concurrent judicial and FCC
jurisdiction over disputes involving Section 622, we will continue to entertain disputes only involving matters
that directly impinge on a `national policy concerning cable communications' that call upon our expertise and
we direct parties to resort to courts to decide all other matters."  In particular, the Commission noted that
"disputes involving whether a particular levy by a state is an impermissible franchise fee disguised as a tax (see
47 U.S.C.  542(g)(1), (2)(A)), payments made under the Copyright Act (id.,  542(g)(2)(E)), incidental
payments made under terms of the franchise (id.,  542(g)(2)(D)) or challenges to the constitutionality of a
particular fee will be directed to the courts whose jurisdiction is established by the Act."

     4.   Consistent with the directive contained in the Memorandum Opinion and Order, we shall
decline to rule on the City of Bedford's Motion because the issue presented appears to involve a definitional
dispute that does not appear to impinge on a "national policy concerning cable communications."

III. ORDERING CLAUSES

     5.   Accordingly, IT IS ORDERED that the Motion for Declaratory Ruling and Petition for
Special Relief filed by the City of Bedford, Ohio IS DISMISSED WITHOUT PREJUDICE.

     6.   This action is taken by the Chief, Cable Services Bureau, pursuant to authority delegated by
Section 0.321 of the Commission's Rules, 47. C.F.R.  0.321.

                              FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION



                              Deborah A. Lathen, Chief
                              Cable Services Bureau