Broadcaster conduct in retransmission consent negotiations “cannot be...
Broadcaster conduct in retransmission consent negotiations “cannot be squared with the outcomes that would occur in a genuinely competitive marketplace,” representatives of the American Cable Association, Charter Communications, DirecTV, Dish Network, New America Foundation and Time Warner Cable told staff…
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from the FCC Office of General Counsel in a meeting last week, an ex parte filing said (http://bit.ly/1el6piA). It said the multichannel video programming distributors and NAF highlighted broadcaster sharing agreements and “brinksmanship tactics” as examples of anticompetitive conduct. Broadcasters’ abilities to coordinate retrans negotiations and to engage in blackouts drive up the price for retrans to “unreasonable levels,” they said. The commission should enact rules to prevent coordinated negotiation during retrans disputes, require interim carriage during disputes, repeal its network non-duplication and syndicated exclusivity rules and adopt “dispute resolution mechanisms” for retrans battles, they said. Those should include a “cooling off period,” a non-binding mediation system and procedures for commercial arbitration, said the filing. Pay-TV companies and public interest groups have been asking the FCC to crack down on what they call retrans abuses, including broadcaster sharing agreements, and Chairman Tom Wheeler may circulate a draft to make joint services agreements attributable for calculating ownership ceilings (CD Feb 3 p11).