Broadcasters' Additional Stations Provisions Need Retrans Reform Scrutiny, Mediacom Says
Calling it "an after-acquired systems provision on steroids," Mediacom said "additional stations" provisions in retransmission consent negotiations are something the FCC should scrutinize in updating its totality of circumstances test for good faith retransmission negotiations. In a letter to FCC…
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Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake posted Wednesday in docket 15-216, Mediacom said it and other cable operators in retrans talks are running into proposed broadcaster provisions whereby terms agreed to with the broadcaster automatically apply also to any stations that later grant that broadcaster authority to negotiate retrans consent on its behalf. The result is the existing retrans agreement with those stations immediately terminates, to be replaced with the agreement with the broadcaster. "In practice, what this provision would do is give the broadcaster a 'hunting license' to seek proxies from any other [local] station ... in which the cable operator provides service," Mediacom said. "This is a far cry from the typical 'after acquired' systems provision" covering any stations broadcasters buy and "flies in the face of the fundamental principles underlying the notion of market-based, good faith retransmission consent negotiations," it said. "If the Commission allows this kind of arrangement to stand, there is every reason to expect that within a few years, a mere handful of stations will dictate the terms of retransmission consent for hundreds of unrelated stations in which they have no other material interest [and] all but write the concept of competitive market considerations out of the retransmission consent process," Mediacom said. In a separate filing Wednesday in the docket, the American TV Alliance pointed to Nexstar Broadcasting's potential blackout of Cox for Sunday's Super Bowl as further evidence of the need for totality of circumstances test reform. "This ... is not a case where agreement between the parties is impossible, or where the parties maintain irreconcilably different views of the value of Nexstar's programming," ATVA said. "It is a shakedown." ATVA has made a variety of proposals for test changes (see 1601140026). Nexstar didn't comment. But TVFreedom in a statement said ATVA "needs to be renamed the American Deception Alliance," pointing to Cox having been involved in 23 blackouts of local TV service since 2013 and that the Super Bowl will be available both online and over the air in affected markets.“The ATVA/Big Pay-TV game plan is clear: Rather than negotiate a fair rate for popular broadcast programming, it seeks to force a few disruptions of service in hopes the FCC will bail them out of a ‘crisis’ of their own making," it said.