A telco didn’t violate FCC retransmission consent rules, the Media Bureau...
A telco didn’t violate FCC retransmission consent rules, the Media Bureau said Friday. It denied Allbritton’s retrans complaint (CD Jan 12 p18) that Shentel didn’t negotiate in good faith for the broadcaster’s WJLA Washington (ABC). An Allbritton executive had no…
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comment. “The parties’ inability to reach a retransmission consent agreement was due to their failure to agree on price -- a fact acknowledged by Allbritton,” said an order signed by bureau Chief Bill Lake. “The record reflects that the parties actively engaged in negotiations, but ultimately did not come to an agreement regarding the rate for retransmission consent of WJLA. As we have stated previously, absent other factors, disagreement over the rates, terms, and conditions of retransmission consent -- even fundamental disagreement -- is not indicative of a lack of good faith.” As “even with good faith, impasse is possible,” Lake wrote later in the order. Of Allbritton’s allegation Shentel didn’t tell subscribers 30 days before dropping WJLA, as commission rules require, “we caution Shentel” that if that wasn’t followed, the telco would have violated the rules. That’s “notwithstanding the fact that it may not have enforced the notice requirements in all instances in which a station is deleted without notice, it reserves the right to do so in its discretion,” Lake wrote of the agency (http://xrl.us/bnfrkt).