ACA To FCC: Outlaw Broadcaster Price Fixing In Retransmission Consent

In an effort to inject free-market competition into retransmission consent, the American Cable Association is urging the Federal Communications Commission to adopt rules that would ban separately owned broadcasters from bargaining as a collusive unit within the same market and outlaw broadcast networks and TV stations from interfering with cable operators' rights to carry distant network signals that customers have historically received and valued.

In response to the broadcasters' claims of no specific evidence to support actual coordination of the sort alleged by smaller cable operators, ACA confirmed and detailed 36 instances of coordinated negotiations -- including the names of the broadcasters involved and the markets where such coordination is occurring -- that ACA members have experienced in just the last three years.

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