Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner

The Argentine government has a solution to stop the skyrocketing of cable television rates in the country: it regulates them.  Now the country’s Secretary of Commerce Guillermo Moreno has ordered Cablevision SA, one of the country’s largest media companies, to freeze basic cable rates at 116 Argentine pesos ($27US) for 2012.

The cable company won a 7 pesos rate hike last September, but there were indications further rate hikes were forthcoming.  Argentine President Cristina Kirchner has engaged in a long-running feud with several large Argentine conglomerates over what she feels is their abuse of market power.

Kirchner has specifically targeted super-sized Grupo Clarín, Cablevision’s parent company, for its relentless rate hikes.  The conglomerate now earns close to two-thirds of its revenue from selling cable TV and broadband Internet.

Kirchner considers corporate monopoly control of broadband to be especially dangerous for the Argentine economy, and her administration is seeking to force Grupo Clarín to divest itself of its broadband business with the passage of several media laws.

Cablevision defends its rate increases, noting Argentina’s inflation rate is currently as high as 25%.  But government officials have the power to suspend or rollback rate increases it determines are unfair or come as a result of Cablevision’s market power.

The $27 a month Cablevision subscribers currently pay for basic cable buys a comparably-sized cable package that North Americans pay more than double that amount to receive: