Mediacom's 'Additional Station' Complaint a 'Fantastic Tale,' NAB Says
Mediacom's complaints about "additional station" provisions in retransmission negotiations are a tempest in a teapot -- "fantastic tales designed to encourage [the FCC] to come rushing to its aid as they negotiate private contracts with local broadcasters," NAB said in…
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a filing Tuesday in docket 15-216. It and Mediacom have been in a war of words over "additional station" language -- which refers to when a broadcaster's retrans deal with a pay-TV company lets the broadcaster expand the deal to include any stations it acquires during the pendency of the contract. The cable company has urged the FCC to add such language to its review of the totality of circumstances test (see 1602160054); NAB has dismissed Mediacom as trying to game retrans consent rules in its favor (see 1602120020). In its latest filing, NAB said the "additional station" dustup and proposed changes to retrans consent rules are equally an effort by pay TV to "play this endless 'gotcha' game to gain regulatory advantage." What "matters is that broadcasters have no ability to unilaterally demand terms and conditions from pay TV operators like Mediacom," NAB said. "A retransmission consent overhaul would require the Commission to delve deeply and frequently into the quagmire of thousands of negotiations and to judge the validity of tens of thousands of different proposed terms, even those terms that are never accepted." "Our efforts to alert the Commission to the new hunting license tactics of the broadcasters has really concerned their industry lobbyists," emailed Mediacom Group Vice President-Legal and Public Affairs Tom Larsen Wednesday. "I don’t know if I have ever seen NAB go to such lengths to distort the truth about a real issue that is occurring today in the retrans marketplace."