NAB Blasts Pay-TV Industry on Retransmission Consent
The MVPD industry objections to loosening broadcast ownership rules are “self-serving,” said NAB in a letter posted in docket 12-318 Tuesday. Filings from DirecTV and other MVPDs “are part of the pay TV industry’s history of opposing any repeal or loosening of the broadcast ownership rules because pay TV providers prefer to compete against and negotiate retransmission consent agreements with competitively weaker broadcasters,” said NAB. The FCC should reject data submitted by DirecTV to support arguments that broadcast consolidation will lead to higher retransmission consent rates, NAB added.
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In an ex parte filing Tuesday, the American Television Alliance also argued that broadcast consolidation will push up retransmission rates. Nexstar and Tegna “seek to merge with the explicit goal of achieving ‘contractual revenue synergies’—a euphemism for higher retransmission consent fees,” ATVA said. “Even if DIRECTV pays higher retransmission consent fees to larger broadcast groups than to smaller groups, this does not demonstrate that those rates are anticompetitive” or “the result of broadcaster market power,” NAB said. “More likely, these data reflect that DIRECTV secures rates that do not reflect the true market value of broadcast signals when it negotiates with smaller, weaker broadcast groups” for retransmission consent fees. “Keeping TV broadcasters artificially small and weak may serve the interests of the pay TV industry, but it disserves the public interest,” NAB said. “We urge the Commission to dismiss DIRECTV’s legally and factually unsound proposal.”