CABLE COMMUNICATIONS
LEGAL BREADTH AND DEPTH FOR CABLE TV OPERATORS

It is a challenging time for cable television operators, as changes in the industry intensify legal issues related to everything from local franchising to the provision of broadband data and voice services. For positive, efficient resolution of these matters, there is a significant advantage to working with lawyers who know the cable television business: individuals having solid expertise in local and federal regulatory issues and a firm understanding that legal matters involving the multichannel video industry often cannot be solved without also addressing underlying business and policy issues.

Davis Wright Tremaine (DWT) serves cable television operators with legal and business sophistication that matches the latest developments in the industry. We are a leading national media/telecommunications law firm, and have successfully represented both small cable television operators and multiple system operators. Our attorneys also counsel clients across the entire spectrum of the media and telecommunications fields, from cable networks and newspapers to wireline and wireless carriers to equipment manufacturers. We make it our business to stay ahead of the technology and the trends in this exciting industry, in order to provide top-quality assistance to our clients and their businesses.

Long-time industry leaders

DWT lawyers have been working with cable industry clients since the industry was in its infancy. Our services include:

• Representing buyers and sellers of multiple system operators and individual cable systems
  
  
• Participating in, monitoring, and reporting on Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rulemaking proceedings
  
  

• Litigating special relief petitions concerning matters such as must-carry complaints and effective competition
  
  
• Advising cable operators on compliance with FCC technical and operating rules and policies, including must-carry and retransmission consent, political broadcasting, lotteries and contests, syndex/non-duplication, Equal Employment Opportunity, annual reporting, frequency usage, and FCC facilities licensing
  
  
• Appearing before cable franchise authorities in connection with local franchise disputes
  
  
• Advising on the legal and operational issues associated with providing telephone and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services via cable
  
  
• Preparing operational agreements needed in connection with the operation of cable systems
  
  
• Negotiating retransmission consent agreements
  
  
• Preparing semi-annual copyright statements of account and responding to inquiry letters from the U.S. Copyright Office

We are leaders and long-time participants in the cable industry, including valuable experience accrued through previous work ranging from the in-house legal staff of a large cable television operator to senior positions at the FCC. DWT attorneys have authored a treatise on communications law, edited a loose-leaf publication on regulation of the multi-channel video industry, written numerous articles on issues affecting cable operators, and been longtime leaders of the Federal Communications Bar Association.

Broad expertise

We offer clients extraordinarily broad legal expertise because our firm has a large cadre of lawyers working on cable industry needs, with many focused on one or more specific areas. When a new legal issue surfaces, we can quickly engage the assistance of a DWT colleague with the ideal skill set to address it.

Our ranks also include litigation attorneys whose focus is effective resolution of cable industry disputes. Whenever possible, we seek a speedy, satisfactory resolution to a dispute through an early victory in court or at the FCC—or an alternative that yields an equally positive outcome. When it is necessary to take disputes to trial, however, our lawyers can achieve excellent results for our clients.

The DWT advantage

Many law firms with a cable industry practice have only a single office, typically in Washington, D.C. Davis Wright Tremaine, however, not only has experienced cable lawyers in our D.C. office, but we also have them in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Portland. Through these offices we advise cable television operators about local franchise issues as well as site-specific matters such as real estate, tax and environmental questions.

DWT is a full-service firm with more than 400 lawyers. In addition to handling legal problems that directly involve the cable industry, we provide legal services to cable networks across a full range of legal matters, including employment, zoning and corporate transactions. We would be pleased to discuss your needs and how we might help meet them, whether on a very specific topic or one that demands our broadest expertise.