Verizon suspends push for Mass. TV franchises
Firm criticizes licensing process — After spending an average of 15 months in each of 45 communities to win approval to offer television service, Verizon Communications Inc. has had enough for now: The company says it will stop seeking …
Context & Ripple Effects
Verizon's entry into Massachusetts pay-TV ran headfirst into the state's town-by-town franchise system: by April 18, 2007, the company had spent an average of 15 months negotiating in each of 45 communities just to win permission to offer television service, and it is now suspending further franchise bids while publicly criticizing the licensing process itself.
The stakes are competitive, not cosmetic. Every month a town's approval drags on is another month its residents have no wired alternative to the incumbent cable operator, so the licensing timeline functions as de facto protection for whoever already holds the franchise — which is precisely Verizon's complaint.
First-order effects
- Residents in the many Massachusetts towns still lacking an approved Verizon franchise continue to face a single wired video provider, while Verizon freezes new applications rather than commit capital to another 15-month approval cycle per community.
- The 45 franchises Verizon already secured remain in force, so its existing footprint keeps expanding even as new town negotiations stop.
Second-order effects
- Incumbent cable operators keep uncontested markets in every town Verizon declines to pursue, and Verizon's criticism of the process gives state lawmakers a ready-made argument for shifting franchise authority from municipal boards to a statewide framework.
- Other wireline carriers eyeing video entry read the same math — a multi-month-per-town regulatory tax ahead of any revenue — and will weigh lobbying for state-level licensing instead of repeating the municipal gauntlet.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, video franchise approval migrates from hundreds of individual town negotiations to state-issued licenses, converting market entry from a local political process into a standardized regulatory right.
- That shift would recast who controls broadband-video competition timelines: build-out pace would be set by state regulators and carriers' capital budgets rather than by town-by-town bargaining power.
The trend: Telcos entering pay-TV are pushing franchise approval from municipal boards toward statewide licensing, making regulator cadence rather than local negotiation the bottleneck on video competition.