• The Washington Post, Wednesday, November 28, 2007 11:30 AM

The divided Federal Communication Commission seems unlikely to approve the hammer chairman Kevin Martin wanted to drop on cable TV operators. Instead, it looks to go with more modest new cable rules. Under the new regulations, cable companies will have to lower the price they charge smaller programmers, like religious community broadcasters, to lease space on unused cable channels. The companies will also have to provide more data on how many subscribers they have.

But Martin says consumers should not have to pay for channels they may find objectionable and has been pushing an al a carte system the industry charges would actually raise prices and limit selection by forcing lesser-watched channels out.

Martin has also been fighting the industry -and some fellow commissioners - over a study that suggests that more than 70%t of Americans who can subscribe to cable packages do so, opening the way for enforcement of dormant federal regulations passed to keep cable companies from growing too big.

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