The FCC doesn't look interested in regulating cable more heavily after all, despite pressure from Chairman Kevin Martin. Today's open meeting, at which an important FCC finding on the cable industry was to have been considered, has been delayed indefinitely, and Martin's plan to bring cable to heel may have backfired.

Martin wants increased control over the cable industry, and he is trying to get it by invoking something called the "70/70 rule" from a 1984 cable bill. That law says that the FCC has broad authority over the cable companies should they ever pass more than 70 percent of all US households, and should more than 70 percent of those households actually subscribe to cable. No one doubts that the first threshold has been reached, but there is substantial uncertainty about the second one.

Martin has been the driving force behind an FCC finding that was to have been considered this morning. That finding would state that cable had in fact exceeded both thresholds, opening the door to possible à la carte regulations and certain kinds of price controls. Martin has already led the charge to abolish exclusive contracts between cable operators and apartment buildings.

But Martin's own Republican colleagues weren't sold on the idea. Commissioners Tate and McDowell generally vote along strong free market and deregulatory lines, and neither was pleased with Martin's attempt at more regulation. Two weeks ago, the two commissioners sent a joint letter (PDF) to one of the research companies that provided some of the FCC data, expressing concern about the "trustworthiness, truthfulness, and viability" of the data in question. Congress has also been applying pressure on the Commission, most of it negative.

The issue is that estimates of cable uptake range from 58 percent to 71.4 percent, so Martin's finding would have sided with the highest possible number. With the two Democrats also reluctant to take action on the issue, an FCC meeting this morning was delayed several hours, then into the afternoon.

Late this evening, the FCC finally announced the results: because the 70/70 threshold was disputed, the Commission would not find that it had been exceeded. Instead, the FCC opted to collect more data, and it directed the cable operators to provide it with accurate customer data under penalty of perjury. When that information is available in several months, the issue will be revisited.

Commissioner Adelstein, who had previously expressed his own skepticism about some of the numbers used to justify Martin's proposed finding, took the opportunity to sound off on the way the matter had been handled. "Unfortunately, the most important data we have--the FCC's own numbers--were suppressed from the Commissioners until the last minute. I did not learn until after 7:00pm last night that the FCC's own 2006 survey found that only 54 percent of homes passed subscribe to cable. Similarly, the FCC's cable price survey came in at 55.2 percent penetration. Based on these newly unearthed facts and the conflicting evidence on the record, I am unable to support afinding that 70 percent of homes passed subscribe to cableat this time. The data is inconclusive."

Martin used his own late-night statement to talk about the numbers as well, and he argued that the highest number (71.4 percent) from Warren Communications News was the most accurate. Still, he pronounced himself "pleased" at the decision not to use Warren data in the future. "While I would have been comfortable relying on the data submitted by Warren," he wrote, "I am pleased that we have determined to avoid the debate in the future about which sources of data are the most accurate and will now receive data from the companies themselves."