TVfreedom gave Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., data it...

2014,” said the letter (http://bit.ly/1qKvYxQ) from the group, which includes NAB and other broadcast interests. TVfreedom said “the average consumer who pays upwards of $130 per month for bundled pay-TV/broadband services must typically bear the brunt of this type of service degradation without explanation or remuneration.” Congress should include relevant protections for consumers in legislation, TVfreedom said. McCaskill, who chairs the Commerce Consumer Protection Subcommittee, has attacked pay-TV industry billing practices and said she intends to develop legislation addressing its problems. NCTA and the American Television Alliance both lashed out at TVfreedom. “Sadly, local broadcasters are back to their old tricks of ginning up spurious claims and pointing fingers at others instead of working constructively with Members of Congress on sensible reforms that would update a dated statute and yield actual consumer benefits,” an NCTA spokesman said by email, calling the pay-TV industry “more competitive than it has ever been” and slamming the “disingenuous” attacks. “We encourage broadcasters to stop slinging mud and instead focus their energies on fulfilling their public interest obligations and trying to innovate in something other than attacking others.” The NCTA spokesman also attacked “outdated” rules creating situations wherein “local stations who freely embrace ‘market negotiations’ for carriage terms insist on retaining government guaranteed channel placement that unnecessarily limits package flexibility and consumer choice.” TVfreedom replied: “The basic service tier enables low-income households, those families who otherwise couldn’t afford the hefty price tag of expanded basic or premium programming packages, to get their cable TV service and access to valuable local broadcast TV stations at affordable prices, totaling about $22 per month, on average.” The American Television Alliance, meanwhile, representing many pay-TV interests, attacked in a blog post (http://bit.ly/1pZTYiC) the TVfreedom allegations as hypocritical and wrong. “Broadcasters are in an all-out war against pay-TV companies, trying anything -- even lying -- to protect their billions from retransmission consent” fees, ATVA said.