TV broadcasters today asked the Federal Communications Commission to halt its review of Charter's proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable, saying the merged company would put local broadcasters at a disadvantage in multiple types of business negotiations.

The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) filed a petition saying the FCC should not approve the merger unless it also changes broadcast ownership rules that limit the number of radio and TV stations a single entity can own. Because the broadcast ownership rules limit mergers, NAB argues that broadcasters have far less negotiating power than big cable companies, which will only get bigger if the FCC allows the latest cable merger to proceed.

The NAB said the greater imbalance would harm broadcasters in retransmission consent negotiations, in which cable operators pay broadcast stations for the right to air their channels.

"Broadcast TV stations unable to combine under the FCC’s local TV ownership rule are at a notable disadvantage in negotiating retransmission consent agreements with such locally and nationally consolidated MVPDs [multichannel video programming distributors]," the NAB petition states.

Broadcast stations are freely available to consumers with over-the-air antennas, but they aren't necessarily aired by all cable companies. Broadcasters can choose to have a "must-carry" status, which forces cable operators to air their programming but doesn't require payment. Broadcast stations can also use a retransmission consent model in order to demand carriage fees, with the risk of not being distributed by cable systems. Stations can be pulled from cable systems when negotiations break down.

Cable companies and broadcasters blame each other for rising cable TV prices. Cable companies have complained about rising programming costs, while broadcasters argue that cable companies are merely trying to distract attention from other fees, such as equipment rental charges.

Separately from the retransmission consent issue, the NAB argued that cable consolidation threatens broadcasters in the advertising business, "the lifeblood of over-the-air, free-to-all TV services."

"While essentially forbidding the joint sale of advertising time by two TV stations in the same market, the Commission has permitted all major pay-TV providers—large cable operators including TWC, satellite TV operators and the telcos—to join forces to create a single platform for local and national advertisers. The proposed merger will create a larger, regionally consolidated MPVD participating in interconnects with multiple other MVPDs, and which clearly will be able to compete more vigorously for advertising than a broadcast TV station prohibited from entering into even a single joint agreement for the sale of advertising," the NAB wrote.

The NAB said the FCC should halt its merger review until it reviews and changes the broadcast ownership rules. The FCC failed to complete required reviews in 2010 and 2014, and it now plans to complete one in 2016, according to the NAB.

"If the Commission fails to reform broadcast ownership rules, some of which are over 70 years old, to better reflect current competitive realities, then the FCC should deny the proposed merger," the NAB said in a press release.

Charter, which wants to close the merger by the end of this year, declined comment when contacted by Ars today. We asked the FCC for a response to the NAB's petition, but we haven't heard back yet.

The FCC previously blocked a merger of Comcast and Time Warner Cable, the nation's two biggest cable companies, saying it could harm competition from online video providers.

To obtain FCC approval, Charter must prove to the commission that the merger will benefit consumers.

The NAB also argued that the deal would harm consumers. If the merger is approved, the top four pay-TV operators would have 79 percent of the nation's subscribers, the NAB wrote.

"If consummated, the merger also would exacerbate concentration levels at the local and regional levels, with clear implications for consumers, as empirical research has shown that large, clustered cable companies charge higher prices than smaller, unclustered ones," the NAB also wrote.

Charter is the fourth biggest cable company after Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Cox, and it would become nearly as big as Comcast if it buys TWC. Charter's deal to buy TWC is worth $56.7 billion; Charter also has a related deal to buy Bright House Networks, a smaller cable company, for $10.4 billion. (Bright House is owned by the Advance/Newhouse Partnership, which is part of Advance Publications. Advance Publications owns Condé Nast, which owns Ars Technica. Advance/Newhouse would own 13 percent of Charter after the proposed transactions.)