American Cable Association says cost of programming is too high

Testifying at the House Communications Subcommittee hearing Thursday on video competition, Patrick Knorr of Sunflower Broadband, representing the American Cable Association, said the cost of programming has grown exponentially. The committee would be "shocked" to know how much small cable operators have to pay for programming, but that there was no way for them to find out because of nondisclosure terms in their contacts. Knorr said Congress should require "transparency" in cost per channel for sports, which would expose the disparities between what large and smaller operators have to pay for it. He also warned that "flaws" in the retransmission consent regime should not be transferred and "hard-baked" into the online video distribution model.