Nexstar, NAB Decry Mediacom Anti-Blackout Petition
NAB and Nexstar are pushing back at a Mediacom petition for new blackout rules. It's "little more than a cynical ploy to curry favorable governmental treatment to lower its costs and help its bottom line," NAB said in an FCC…
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filing posted Friday in RM-11752. Mediacom in July petitioned the FCC to adopt rules preventing local broadcasters from imposing blackouts unless a station's signal is available for free over-the-air or via Internet streaming to 90 percent of the homes in the relevant market (see 1507070061). "Their comical plea might as well have been delivered ... on the back of a unicorn," NAB said as it argued against Mediacom's assertion broadcasters are focused primarily on satellite uplink facilities and multiplexing their signals to the detriment of free public access to those signals, not extending the public's free access to those signals. Mediacom's proposal "is just one more filing [by an MVPD] seeking Commission assistance to avoid negotiating in good faith to reach fair and equitable terms," Nexstar said as it echoed NAB's assertion that the FCC lacks the authority to make such a move. Mediacom "conflates the broadcaster obligation to serve the needs and interests of their communities with a requirement that broadcasters transmit viewable signals via MVPDs," Nexstar said. The broadcaster called the proposal unworkable because it would require the FCC to both define "active" negotiation and come up with a means for determining that a specified percentage of MVPD subscribers were also reached by a broadcaster's over-the-air signal at a particular point in time.