This Order: Text | Word97 | Acrobat
Statements: Powell | Ness
Tristani: Press Statement | Dissenting Statement

FCC 01-95


Before the
Federal Communications Commission
Washington, DC 20554


In the Matter of

Applications for Consent to the
Transfer of Control of Licenses and
Section 214 Authorizations from

MediaOne Group, Inc
Transferor,

To

AT&T Corp.
Transferee

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CS Docket No. 99-251


ORDER

Adopted: March 16, 2001 Released: March 16, 2001


By the Commission: Chairman Powell issuing a statement; Commissioner Ness issuing a statement; Commissioner Tristani dissenting and issuing a statement.

1. In this Order, we suspend the March 20, 2001 and May 19, 2001 compliance deadlines established in the June 6, 2000 Order in the captioned proceeding.1

2. The June 6, 2000 Order, granting the subject application to permit AT&T's acquisition of MediaOne, was conditioned on AT&T, by May 19, 2001, (a) divesting its interests in Time Warner Entertainment, L.P. ("TWE"), (b) terminating its involvement in video programming activities, or (c) divesting its interests in other cable systems, such that it would have attributable ownership interests in cable systems serving no more than 30% of MVPD subscribers nationwide.2 To ensure that AT&T took timely steps towards compliance, the June 6, 2000 Order established a series of interim compliance steps, including a deadline of March 20, 2001 at which time AT&T would state either that it would be in compliance with the May 19, 2001 deadline or that it would not be in compliance. If compliance was not to be accomplished, AT&T would be required to describe the irrevocable trust arrangement that it would be required to establish by May 19, 2001 to effectuate sale of the assets necessary to carry out its elected compliance option.4

3. On March 2, 2001, the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit released its decision in Time Warner Entertainment Co., L.P. v. Federal Communications Commission (No. 94-1035, March 2, 2001). The Court reversed and remanded our horizontal ownership and affiliated programming limits and did the same for certain aspects of the attribution rules.4

4. In order to afford the Commission an opportunity to determine the relationship, if any, between the Court's decision on the ownership rules and the ownership conditions adopted in this proceeding, IT IS ORDERED that both the interim March 20, 2001 deadline and the final compliance deadline of May 19, 2001 ARE SUSPENDED pending further order of the Commission.

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION



Magalie Roman Salas
Secretary


1. In the Matter of Applications for Consent to the Transfer of Control of Licenses and Section 214 Authorizations from MediaOne Group, Inc., Transferor, To AT&T Corp., Transferee, CS Docket No. 99-251, Memorandum Opinion and Order ("June 6, 2000 Order"), 15 FCC Rcd. 9816 (2000).

2. Id., Ordering Clause paragraph 186.

3. Id., Ordering Clauses paragraph 187 and 188.

4. In the Matter of Implementation of Section 11(c) of the Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992, Horizontal Ownership Limits, 14 FCC Rcd 19,980 (1999); and Implementation of the Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992, Implementation of Cable Act Reform Provisions of the Telecommunication Act of 1996, Review of the Commission's Cable Attribution Rules, 13 FCC Rcd 12,990 (1998) and 14 FCC Rcd 19,014 (1999).