Late last week I presented a brief article on retransmission consent.
This week there is even more news on this controversial issue.
Yesterday the House Communications Subcommittee held hearings featuring FCC chairman Julius Genachowski. One of the topics was retransmission consent and current failed negotiations with cable and satellite operators.
In his testimony Genachowski noted that despite studies on retrans, the Commission's powers are "limited."
"Our options are limited," Genachowski said. "I wouldn't say that should
hold up any inquiry by the committee in changing the law."
In other words, the chairman was looking to Congress to assist in reforming the FCC's power to resolve retrans disputes.
Changing the rules would be tricky and would lead to a long and protracted battle bwtween cable and satellite companies and broadcasters. Satellite and cable owners would like reforms that include a no-blackout rule that would keep popular local channels available to consumers. Broadcasters and cable networks are not interested in FCC intrusion into a lucrative revenue stream. From Variety
The latest retrans dispute involve Hearst Television, Time-Warner Cable, and Direct-TV.
Although negotiations continued beyond the July 1 deadline, Hearst Television and Time-Warner Cable (TWC) have not resolved their differences. With the exception of one station in Milwaukee, all Hearst stations have been removed from TWC systems as of July 10.
Hearst owns stations in large markets like Pittsburgh, Boston, and Cincinnati. Small marekt stations in Plattsburgh NY, Lincoln NE, and Winston-Salem, NC have also been removed from TWC systems in their coverage areas.
No word on when or if negotiations will resume. From Broadcasting & Cable
While there are some retrans rules for satellite providers, most disputes between program providers and the carriers involve revenue for the content providers.
Viacom has removed all of its networks from satellite carrier Direct-TV. The removal of popular channels such as Nickelodeon, MTV, and COmedy Centra affect 19.9 million subscribers to Direct-TV.
Direct TV claims Viacon wants an increase of $1billion dollars in fees for their content. Viacom counters that the requested increase is a "couple pennies a day" per subscriber.
The channels now unavailable to DirecTV customers are: Nickelodeon,
Comedy Central, MTV, BET, VH1, CMT, Logo, Spike, TV Land, MTV2, VH1
Classic, Palladia, Nick Jr., NickToons, TeenNick, Nickelodeon West,
Tr3s, Centric, MTV India, Nickelodeon HD, Comedy Central HD, MTV HD, BET
HD, VH1 HD, CMT HD and Spike HD.
No word on when negotiations will resume. From Multichannel News
In a related story, Dish Network dropped AMC cable channels for its subscribers on July 1.
Unlike other disputes between satellite providers and content providers, this one involves carriage. Last month Dish moved AMC flagship channel to channel 9069. A channel that many Dish subscribers may have a hard time finding.
Dish said at the time the move was because AMC and its channels were only watched by a small number of subscribes. Dish also planned to drop many other channels owned by AMC.
For subscribers finding AMC series such as Mad Men, The Killing, and Walking Dead may become difficult.
Personal note: There are channels on the Roku device that carry these series. From Ad Week
More and more cable operators are increasing their available broadband speeds. Some as high as 100 MB. Now that is fast.
While offering very high speeds, Charter Communications is eliminating its lower speed broadband services. Charter will only be offering a 30 MB and 100 MB service. As these roll out, there are special deals for new and current subscribers. From Multichannel News
If you are interested in the politics of the day - President Obama's approval ratings are down according to Gallup.
GOP presumptive nominee Mitt Romney sounds a little emotional asking NAACP members to "look in his heart." Fox
That's it for now.
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