FCC Encourages Broadcasters, Cable Companies to End Carriage Disputes
The FCC has asked broadcasting and cable executives to settle two carriage disputes that would leave millions of subscribers without cable access to signals from several dozen TV stations starting New Year’s day if unresolved, agency officials said. Chairman Julius Genachowski has asked agency officials to encourage Fox and Time Warner Cable, in one dispute (CD Dec 22 p9), and Mediacom and Sinclair, at a contractual impasse, to sign new deals or temporarily extend existing ones before deadlines around 11:59 p.m. EST Thursday, they said. If no deal is reached by then, cable subscribers won’t be able to view stations owned by Fox parent News Corp. and by Sinclair if those broadcasters pull the plug. A Sinclair executive said he doesn’t expect a deal to be reached before New Year’s Day.
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Representatives from the four companies have met with FCC members and other officials recently to discuss the situation, agency officials said. The chairman’s office and his representatives have helped keep other FCC members informed of the carriage negotiations and taken a lead in encouraging the parties to both disputes to sign new deals, they said. Genachowski seems to hope that a carriage cutoff can be averted, in part so the commission won’t have to intervene further in both cases, they said. A Media Bureau spokeswoman declined to comment.
Genachowski and colleagues appear more concerned that the Mediacom-Sinclair dispute won’t be resolved than that the Fox-Time Warner Cable impasse won’t end, agency officials said. Because of that concern, FCC officials asked Mediacom and Sinclair executives to begin mediation, which both sides participated in on Monday without reaching a new deal, the officials said. No new date has been set for further mediation, they said.
“The commission seems to view mediation as a means of getting the sides to sit down and talk together” and for the mediator “to try to push the sides closer together,” said Mediacom Legal and Public Affairs Vice President Thomas Larsen. “It just didn’t happen to work” but “we were certainly encouraged by the fact that both sides showed up and the commission seemed to be pushing both parties to mediation.” The mediation has “strict confidentiality,” he said. A commission official similarly described the mediation. A signal cutoff by Sinclair would leave about 700,000 Mediacom subscribers in 15 markets without Mediacom cable access to 24 of the broadcaster’s TV stations, Larsen said. They include seven Fox affiliates, four of ABC and one each of NBC and CBS, he added.
Sinclair General Counsel Barry Faber expects Mediacom to stop carrying its signals at 12:01 a.m. New Year’s Day, though the broadcaster “remains willing to negotiate,” he said. “We encourage our viewers to make alternative arrangements to continue to watch the stations either for free over-the-air or by subscribing to one of Mediacom’s competitors, such as DirecTV or Dish Network, who have been able successfully to negotiate long-term retransmission consent agreements.” Sinclair is “making every effort to get a deal done” and doesn’t expect the FCC to require carriage after Dec. 31, he added.
Mediacom is willing to re-enter mediation with Sinclair and both sides continue to hold conversations, Larsen said. “We've worked very, very hard to try to come to terms with them and to try to create a deal that makes sense for both parties. It’s just that we're not there yet.” Mediacom last week offered to pay Sinclair its full asking price if the broadcaster agreed to a 90-day contract extension, Larsen said. Sinclair wants the cable operator to agree to a one- year contract, versus the more-typical three-year carriage deals, he said: “At some point if we can’t get this deal worked out, the FCC needs to make a decision to protect the public interest.” The cable operator filed a complaint to the FCC over the carriage dispute (CD Oct 26 p2).
There’s some optimism at the FCC that Fox and Time Warner Cable can reach a deal for carriage of News Corp.- owned stations affiliated with the Fox network, commission officials said. As a result, Genachowski and his representatives haven’t tried to get Fox and Time Warner Cable to begin mediation, they said. A Fox spokesman declined to comment. About 3.9 million Time Warner Cable subscribers in markets including Dallas, Los Angeles and New York could be affected by a Fox signal cutoff, Pali Research has estimated. A Time Warner Cable spokeswoman declined to comment on subscriber numbers.
Negotiations between the companies “are active” and “ongoing,” the Time Warner Cable spokeswoman said: “But Fox’s current demands are still egregious, particularly in this economic climate.” The cable operator, she said, hopes “Fox won’t punish the customers by pulling their programming while we continue to try to reach an agreement.”