American Cable Association Highlights Broadcaster Greed We've repeatedly noted how consumers are increasingly subjected to annoying content blackouts every time broadcasters and cable providers fail to negotiate new contracts like grown ups. These feuds usually involve consumers losing access to content they pay for, followed by both sides using consumers as PR pinatas as they try to blame the other side for the negotiations breakdown. That's usually followed up by a confidential new deal, after which already frustrated consumers are told they get to pay more money than ever for the same bundle of bloated channels.

The American Cable Association, a coalition of smaller cable ops, this week launched a new " TV Ransom " campaign to highlight what they believe is broadcaster greed and problematic negotiation tactics. "Across the country hundreds of local cable operators are beginning to negotiate with a handful of corporate media conglomerates that own many of the local TV station affiliates for ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC," said the group. "Retransmission consent should be a straight-forward business negotiation, but, unfortunately, these corporate broadcasters abuse their market power to extract outrageous fees from cable customers," ACA President Matt Polka said of the campaign's launch. The campaign comes as the group also petitioned the FCC to ban retrans blackouts as off limits and "bad faith bargaining." They're also calling for a ban of such blackouts during disasters, after residents of Puerto Rico this week briefly lost access to several networks owned by Lilly Broadcasting after yet another such dispute. The group also blasted Hearst Television for pulling channels offline in Orlando and New Orleans as Hurricane Irma approached the area. "Broadcasters generally extract the highest fees from the smallest cable operators and their customers, and their demands keep escalating," says the ACA. "SNL Kagan projects that these fees will cost U.S. consumers and satellite and cable operators $11.6 billion by 2022, up from $8.6 billion in 2017, a stunning 35 percent increase in just five years." It's extremely unlikely that Pai will listen to the ACA's complaint, as regulators have traditionally ignored the negative impact of these blackouts on consumers and small businesses alike. That is, unfortunately, partially ACA's own fault, since the group lavished praise repeatedly upon the agency boss despite his It's extremely unlikely that Pai will listen to the ACA's complaint, as regulators have traditionally ignored the negative impact of these blackouts on consumers and small businesses alike. That is, unfortunately, partially ACA's own fault, since the group lavished praise repeatedly upon the agency boss despite his fairly obvious cozy relationship with massive telecom and media conglomerates. In short: expect these blackouts to get worse, potentially driving many smaller cable TV providers out of the industry entirely as merger-mania drives programming rates higher, eroding already fairly narrow profit margins for small providers.







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Most recommended from 42 comments

xsquid40

join:2010-03-18

Staunton, IL 11 recommendations xsquid40 Member Public Data would be helpful Most(all) of the OTA retransmission contracts have a clause that prohibits the rebroadcaster(cableco) from disclosing the rate negotiated.



In negotiations, these are "take it or leave it" discussions. The content provider blares the incredible value of their services to justify a 1.5x-2x increase in per-sub fees.



Many of these negotiations go something like this.



Provider - Here's our new contract with access to unbelievable local content, best in the industry, award winning, bla bla bla. And the price will be 2x what it was last time.



Cableco - Um, no. CableTV is at best a legacy break even service to support broadband. We'll support a modest increase.



Provider - Your operation will sink without our amazing content. And the price is justified because everyone else will pay it. No discounts, because we just can't do that.



Cableco - Um, no. General shouting an yelling on several conference calls.



Months pass.....



Provider - We'll cut you off if you don't agree.



Cableco - what choice do we have? Increase the broadcast recovery fee.



Provider - See? How amazing is our content!! By the way, you can't tell ANYONE what price you're paying, even if the big cableco one town away is paying half, he can't tell you either.



What a joke. Negotiations......right.

r81984

Fair and Balanced

Premium Member

join:2001-11-14

Katy, TX 5 recommendations r81984 Premium Member Copy Aereo Aereo had the right idea, make a million micro antennas and lease them to the customer instead of rebroadcasting. Then the customer can use their microantenna to watch the OTA tv.

Problem solved.



Oh wait??? They bribed judges to say leasing antennas was illegal (when it really is not). I bet they regret that now. Slyster

join:2015-01-08

Sugar Grove, VA 3 recommendations Slyster Member Long over due These numbers need to be public.