Public Interest Groups Urge FCC Action To Protect TV Viewers

Public Knowledge, New America Foundation and Benton Foundation urged the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to take strong action to protect consumers caught up in disputes between cable companies and broadcasters over program carriage.

The groups told the FCC that, “Commission’s current actions and rules are insufficient to protect members of the public from losing access to important and popular programming.” In 10 years, the FCC has found a violation of the “good faith” standard only once, and has never enforced a forfeiture penalty, the groups noted. Instead, the three organizations emphasized that the FCC has more authority than it has been exercising previously, whether to make certain cable and broadcasters negotiate in “good faith” as the law requires, and to protect consumers from rate increases: “We write to reemphasize that the Commission has clear authority to act in this docket, both to enforce the ‘good faith’ requirement and fulfill the Commission’s responsibility to ensure that fees for retransmission consent do not unreasonably raise the basic rate consumers pay for cable.”