Gray, Other Broadcasters Oppose Mediacom Petition; Block Seeks Retrans Act
The FCC should encourage action to keep more live sports on broadcast TV instead of taking steps to “dismantle” broadcaster retransmission consent rights as requested in a petition from Mediacom, said broadcasters Gray Television, Media General, Meredith and Raycom in…
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joint comments posted in RM-11752 Monday. NAB and Nexstar expressed their own disapproval of the Mediacom petition, in comments posted Friday (see 1508140062). If live sports such as NFL football moved from broadcast networks to cable, “the licensing fees that networks like ESPN, Fox Sports 1, and TNT would charge would be astronomical,” the joint filing from broadcasters said. “Those fees naturally would be passed on to consumers.” The suggestions in Mediacom’s petition would encourage that exodus and hurt local broadcasting, the joint filing said. Imposing a license renewal condition tying a broadcaster’s retrans rights to its coverage would violate the Communications Act, they said. “The failure of some broadcasters to reach an arbitrary level of over-the-air coverage that Mediacom deems adequate” is the result of FCC construction permit freezes and policies connected to the incentive auction, the broadcasters said. In contrast, Block Communications sees the Mediacom petition, along with its own, earlier retrans reform petition, as a signal to the FCC. “While Block does not support every proposal Mediacom advances, plainly the time has come for the FCC to tackle this important issue,” Block said in its comments. The FCC should hold a comment proceeding on all the retrans reform proposals it has received, Block said. Broadcasters and multichannel video programming distributors “are able to use their immense scale to force smaller local negotiating partners to accept rates that are far out-of-sync with fair market rates,” it said.