MVPDs, Broadcasters Clash Over C Spire Declaratory Ruling Petition

away the ability of its WLOX Biloxi, Mississippi, to negotiate retrans in good faith by carriage being tied to carriage also for a CBS station, making a mockery of the market-modification process, said America's Communications Association in a docket 19-159 posting Tuesday. It said C Spire -- which filed a retrans consent complaint alleging CBS and Gray are blocking a WLOX deal unless it also pays to retransmit fees to Tegna's CBS affiliate -- isn't the only cable operator facing such issues and the FCC should simply grant C Spire's complaint or, at the least, the declaratory ruling petition. The Russellville, Kentucky, Electric Plant Board, said it's similarly been unable to obtain a station's multicast programming streams after a market modification because of the station's network affiliation agreements not allowing it to grant retrans consent outside its designated market area. There's no need for the FCC to make clear retrans negotiations include good-faith bargaining obligations, as broadcasters and MVPDs already understand, the CBS, ABC, Fox TV Affiliates associations and NBC TV Affiliates said. But it would contradict FCC precedent and step on the private retrans consent marketplace to declare that territorial restrictions in local broadcasters' network affiliate agreements that limit distribution of network programming in market modification communities violate good-faith bargaining, they said. They said the network-affiliate relationship has to give networks the ability to determine the areas where affiliates can distribute network programming as a means of serving localism, and C Spire's petition as it relates to network territorial restrictions would result in endless litigation.