WASHINGTON—In the runup to a August 7 vote on a Federal Communications Commission’s proposal to change ownership rules for broadcast station groups, the pay TV-backed American Television Alliance (ATVA) met with commissioners and staff to oppose the changes.
In a July 27 meeting with Marcus Maher of Commissioner Olivia Trusty’s office and a July 24 meeting with Deena Shetler of Commissioner Anna Gomez’s office, ATVA raised “significant concerns” about the proposal, saying it would increase “retransmission consent fees” and cause “higher consumer bills”.
In a letter describing the meetings, Michael Nilsson, counsel to the ATVA “pointed out inconsistencies between the Draft Order, which directs parties to raise retransmission consent issues in individual transactions, and the Media Bureau’s decisions in individual transactions, which direct parties to instead raise such issues in rulemakings of general applicability.”
The group also objected “to the Draft Order on policy grounds, and believe it is inconsistent with Administration efforts to lower consumer prices. We also have fully briefed our view that Congress did not give the Commission authority to modify or eliminate the national cap.”
“ATVA’s position is that national (and local) consolidation among stations affiliated with the Big Four networks (ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC) generally results in higher retransmission consent fees,” the letter concluded. “We believe that we have submitted sufficient evidence regarding national consolidation in this rulemaking to demonstrate this point, which should (at a minimum) give the Commission pause before permitting more national consolidation.”
The full letter can be found here.
NAB officials recently met with FCC officials to support the changes.
