Cable investors are concerned about the prospect of Title II...

as a slippery slope that will eventually lead to significant government oversight of cable’s ‘bread and butter,'” its broadband business, she said. The main concern is that future regulators could scale back the forbearance from most of the common carrier rules that Genachowski proposes, she said. Even if the FCC adopts the reclassification proposal, which Ryvicker doubts, it would be at least 2016 before the forbearance provisions could be eliminated, she said. Genachowski’s term doesn’t end until 2014 and any move to impose more rules would be fought by the network operators for at least a couple of years, she said. “While we understand the overhang that is typically created by regulatory uncertainty, we think the heightened fear will eventually die down as Title 2 ‘light’ just becomes a ‘another’ regulatory risk facing the cable MSOs.” Ryvicker said other investor concerns about the cable industry include: The fear that online video will ruin conventional pay-TV operators’ business; uncertainty about who will win the battle between programmers and distributors over content license fees; concern that Comcast will have to give up assets to get federal approval of its NBC Universal takeover; and uncertainty about the pace and timing of future large cable mergers. Beyond cable, media investors worry that they have missed the rally in CBS shares, DirecTV will soon start losing subscribers and TiVo’s court fight with Dish will continue to cloud the future for investors in the satellite-TV company, she said.