There is No Freedom in 'Free' TV

[Commentary] Broadcasters recently launched a front group with the apparent purpose of attacking pay-TV providers and making enough noise to distract from reforming our broken retransmission consent system that victimizes the public.

They named their new group TVFreedom, perhaps to misdirect from the fact that for decades they’ve actually opposed freedom of choice for TV viewers.

If the basic tier mandate is so critical to public safety, where is the evidence that the lack of such a mandate for the satellite companies has led to any harms?

Broadcasters are currently squatting on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of spectrum that they’re not using other than to provide 8% of the American public with “local” TV -- if and when those users can receive a decent broadcast signal. And local television isn’t even local anymore. Only one out of two TV stations actually shows local news. Further, 50% of the money collected in retransmission consent fees goes back to New York City to pay for expensive network programming, which is the exact opposite of what retransmission was supposed to do.

The broadcasters cannot -- and should not be allowed by the media -- to get away with claiming that retransmission consent amounts to the free market at the same time they fight to protect the government requirement that cable and telecom providers carry certain broadcast TV channels. Nor should they be able to claim retransmission consent is the free market when they tie carriage of the expensive cable channels they own to the local TV stations.

The basic tier is a relic of a bygone era when broadcasters were the only game in town. New technologies have disrupted this monopoly and now broadcasters are fighting to save a dying business model. Protecting an archaic monopoly is never good public policy.

[Frederick, PhD, is spokesman for the American Television Alliance]