FCC’s Genachowski: Open to Helping Smaller Cable Ops With Retransmission Issues

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski told an American Cable Association audience in Washington that the FCC was "open" to finding a way to insure that smaller cable operators aren't disproportionately affected by retransmission consent negotiations with larger station groups and networks.

"That is something that the ACA and the commissioner and ACA should continue to talk about," he told ACA President Matt Polka. That would be just fine with ACA, though there could be more talk -- say, advice to Congress -- than action out of the commission, at least via its open retrans rulemaking, given that the chairman continues to say the FCC has little authority over the workings of that system, a system cable ops say is arcane, outmoded and skewed toward bigger broadcast players. Chairman Genachowski applauded the relative lack of retrans blackouts in the most recent cycle, something ACA execs saw somewhat differently.