Time Warner Cable asked the FCC in a...
Time Warner Cable asked the FCC in a meeting with Commissioner Ajit Pai Wednesday to target so-called collusion by competing TV stations in retransmission consent negotiations, according to an ex parte letter filed Thursday (http://bit.ly/14KpjKe). Latham & Watkins attorney Matthew…
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Brill said broadcasters are misusing local marketing agreements, shared services agreements and joint sales agreements to “collude in negotiating retransmission consent.” TWC referenced an American Cable Association report that showed as of April 2012, there were 65 instances of sharing agreements between two or more separately owned Big Four stations in 58 designated market areas across the country, with “48 instances in 43 DMAs where retransmission consent negotiations were conducted by a single representative for two or more stations.” To combat the problem, TWC asked the agency to rule that a station’s assignment of its right to negotiate retransmission consent to another station requires commission approval and make it a “per se violation of the good-faith negotiation standard” to grant negotiation rights when the stations aren’t both owned by the same party.