TVFreedom lambasted Congress for the different policies that...
TVFreedom lambasted Congress for the different policies that have come up this year during the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act reauthorization process. TVFreedom is a broadcaster coalition with NAB among its members. “Current Congressional efforts to regulate the video…
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marketplace are unfortunately myopically focused on one faulty premise -- that TV blackouts have reached epidemic proportions due to retransmission consent disputes between broadcasters and pay-TV providers,” TVFreedom’s spokesman Robert Kenny wrote in a Monday op-ed for The Hill (http://bit.ly/1DSkWwN). He attacked the pay-TV industry in broad terms and backed two senators he views as pursuing these problems -- Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., for introducing an amendment to curb “gratuitous set-top box rental fees,” and Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., for introducing an amendment on pay-TV billing practices and expected to hold a hearing on the issue. “Congress can reverse this trend of constant consumer abuse as it embarks on reforming the nation’s video marketplace,” said Kenny. “Let’s hope lawmakers see passed pay-TV’s ‘fat-cat’ lobbying tactics and take action to help lower consumers’ monthly cable and satellite TV bills that have risen at twice the rate of inflation for the past two decades.” Kenny attacked congressional provisions that would limit broadcaster joint retransmission consent negotiation as well as, without naming it directly, the broadcast a la carte proposal known as Local Choice, which was dropped from a Senate STELA reauthorization bill. Pay-TV companies have united to lobby against broadcasters on many of these issues through the coalition known as the American Television Alliance.