Press Pressed By Fractious Retransmission Factions

Washington (DC) was the land of dueling press conferences on Sept 12.

The American Television Alliance held a conference call to say that there was a critical mass of congressional support for fixing the broken retransmission consent regime and that the question now was not whether but when. The National Association of Broadcasters countered with their own press conference. One suggestion on the call was that "when" would likely be when Congress weighs in on the re-authorization of the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act at the end of 2014. Michael Calabrese of the New America Foundation, which was among the petitioners to the Federal Communications Commission for retransmission reform, said broadcasters should not be able to black out viewers and "hold viewers hostage for higher retransmission fees." He said it was not a contract dispute between equally evil--he amended that to "equally greedy" industries. He said that difference was broadcasters public interest obligation "that is paid for by the public already in free spectrum." John Breyault, VP of public policy at National Consumer League, who was also on the ATVA call, said the focus should be on consumers, not broadcasters or cable operators.