Cablevision Petitions FCC for Retransmission Reform

BETHPAGE: Cablevision Systems Corp. has filed a proposal with the FCC seeking reform of the current system governing the retransmission consent process.

Broadcast stations have been seeking increased retransmission carriage fees from pay-TV providers. SNL Kagan recently reported that U.S. broadcast retransmission fees could reach $3.61 billion in 2017 from $1.14 billion in 2010.

The reforms proposed by Cablevision include no longer requiring the carriage of unrelated cable channels, owned by broadcasters, in order to also carry their broadcast networks. The cable platform says that this practice has allowed broadcasters to "raise consumer costs by forcing carriage of their channels of limited interest in exchange for access to major broadcast networks and ‘must see’ programming."

Cablevision also wants transparency, and is calling for the end of the practice of allowing broadcasters to not disclose their retrans fees. The third proposal is to forbid discrimination: "Allow broadcasters to continue to set the price of carriage, but do not allow them to discriminate among cable and satellite providers based on size or other factors," Cablevision says.

"We are pleased the FCC has initiated this important proceeding, and have proposed three simple market-based reforms to the good faith negotiations rules that will protect consumers from the threat of broadcaster blackouts," said Tom Rutledge, Cablevision’s COO. "As the FCC and Congress know, consumers are the ones who are harmed when broadcasters pull or threaten to pull their networks from cable systems."

He added, “The days of secret pricing that, among other things, requires consumers to pay for additional cable channels before they can receive a broadcast channel should come to an end. Broadcasters should not be able to keep the prices they charge hidden or to discriminate between distributors in a given market. Our simple reforms would end these practices, and we urge the FCC to consider this consumer friendly approach.”