The FCC should use its media ownership rulemaking proceeding to...
The FCC should use its media ownership rulemaking proceeding to look at the issue of retransmission consent, advocates for changing the retrans rules told Media Bureau officials last week, an ex parte notice shows. They asked the commission to examine…
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whether the major broadcast networks’ involvement in affiliates’ retrans negotiations violates FCC’s ownership rules. Under current rules, a single company is barred from owning TV stations that reach more than 39 percent of the country’s households, the notice said. “The FCC should examine whether a national network’s veto power or right of approval over its affiliated stations’ retransmission consent agreements give the network an attributable interest in those stations, which would result in the network’s violation of the national ownership cap.” Representatives from the American TV Alliance including DirecTV, Mediacom, American Cable Association, Dish Network, Cablevision, Time Warner Cable and USTelecom asked Media Bureau staff to study whether the practice of jointly-negotiated retransmission deals between multiple stations in a given market violates FCC rules. They also asked the staff to examine the effects of a station having multiple major network affiliations through multicasting. The ATVA released a research paper that found broadcasters’ increased retrans revenue hasn’t been used “to enhance their provision of local news and public affairs programming.” The study, by Fordham University professor Philip Napoli, suggests that “retransmission consent provisions are not accomplishing their original goal of enhancing broadcasters’ commitment to localism.” A spokesman for the NAB said the premise of the study is absurd. “There is more local news on broadcast TV now than in any time in history,” he said. Moreover, “revenue derived from retransmission consent is not just used for news, but to keep the most-watched entertainment and sports programming from migrating to pay-TV."