Mediacom Example of Why Pay TV Needs Regulating, TVFreedom Says
Mediacom is a poster child of poor customer service and an indicator why Congress must "lead the charge on a series of industrywide regulatory reforms," TVFreedom said in a blog post Wednesday. "It’s also no secret that cable and satellite…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
TV providers represent the most disliked business sector in America," said Director of Public Affairs Robert Kenny in the blog, pointing to American Customer Satisfaction Index rankings. After highlighting a pair of anecdotal Mediacom customer complaints about particularly poor service, Kenny said Mediacom "is not alone in its abysmal treatment of consumers" and highlighted oversight or regulatory pushes going on now in Congress such as inquiries by Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., into pay-TV companies (see 1508100034">1508100034) and by a group of senators into pay-TV pricing (see 1507100045). "Clearly, Congress recognizes that the anti-consumer behavior of pay-TV companies is pervasive and has gone unchecked for far too long," wrote Kenny. "This pay-TV reform movement is justified in a marketplace where consolidation will continue to erode competition and further diminish consumers’ choices for service." Organizations like TVFreedom and NAB "try to divert the attention away from the bad behavior of the broadcast industry by saying our behavior is worse. That way, they can avoid talking about retrans prices rising 8600 percent between 2005 and 2012, retrans prices more than doubling between 2013 and 2015, and the millions of American consumers that they have blacked out over the last five years," responded Thomas Larsen, Mediacom senior vice president-government and public relations. Mediacom is a member of the American Television Alliance, ATVA's website said; the group wants to change retransmission consent rules which broadcasters say work. A draft FCC NPRM on retrans is circulating (see 1508180053">1508180053).