More than 90 percent of current commercial TV...
More than 90 percent of current commercial TV station owners “did NOT get free spectrum,” NAB Executive Vice President Dennis Wharton said in response to comments from CEA President Gary Shapiro on an episode of C-SPAN’s The Communicators, that was…
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set for telecast Saturday (CD Jan 3 p1). “In fact, today’s TV station owners paid BILLIONS of dollars IN TOTAL for properties that have been sold and re-sold since the 1940s,” Wharton said in an email. “Spectrum was part of that price.” Wharton also challenged Shapiro’s comments that only 10 percent of people watch over-the-air TV. “GfK’s annual survey released last June showed that non-pay TV households now represent 19.3 percent of the population, up from 17.3 percent a year earlier and 14 percent the year before that,” he said. “A leading factor is cord-cutting and the multiplicity of ‘multicast DTV channels’ (especially foreign language channels and channels like Bounce, and 24/7 all-African American broadcast network).” Shapiro was confused in his comments on must-carry rules, Wharton said. “The ‘92 Cable Act simply requires a cable company to sit down every few years with a broadcaster and negotiate terms under which the highly valuable local TV signal is carried,” he said. “If a broadcaster elects ‘must carry,’ the broadcaster CANNOT demand payment. If a broadcaster elects retransmission consent, the broadcaster CANNOT demand carriage. The law does NOT require cable companies to pay broadcasters A PENNY if the broadcaster elects retransmission consent, and the law does NOT allow a broadcaster that elects retransmission consent to default to mandatory ‘must-carry’ if retrans negotiations break down and there is an impasse in service."