Mediacom invoked FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s comments on retransmission consent (RTC) to an American Cable...
Mediacom invoked FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s comments on retransmission consent (RTC) to an American Cable Association conference last week, in the company’s effort to seek new rules. Though Genachowski said the number of disputes is at an ebb, Mediacom is…
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“heartened” he recognized blackouts can hurt small operators, CEO Rocco Commisso wrote. “I want to stress how urgent it is that the Commission take action to address the imbalance in the RTC marketplace,” he wrote Genachowski in a letter posted Wednesday to docket 10-71 (http://xrl.us/bmy5dx). “If only that were true” that the number of blackouts is declining as Genachowski suggested, Commisso continued. “According to our research, consumers in 31 different DMAs [designated market areas] were impacted by RTC-related service disruptions in 2011 and shutdowns have occurred in at least 20 additional DMAs in just the first eleven weeks of 2012,” he wrote. “That is more than double the number of DMAs impacted by shutdowns in the preceding two years combined.” Executives of five other ACA members visited the commission last week to seek action on retrans. Bright House Networks, a larger operator not part of ACA, also is “urging Commission attention to its ongoing review” of retrans, CEO Steve Miron told Genachowski. That’s according to a filing in the docket (http://xrl.us/bmy5em).