(Alexandria, VA) – The362,000-member NationalTaxpayers Union (NTU), the nation’s oldest taxpayer advocacy organization,today urged Senate Commerce Committee Members to spend their Wednesday hearingexploring how to untangle the complicated web of preferences and regulationsthat have made a mess of television retransmission consent negotiations, ratherthan resorting to greater government intervention in the marketplace.
The Commerce Committee hearing is,in part, a response to the well-publicized 16-day blackout of Fox programsexperienced by New York-area Cablevision customers. As a result, some on theCommittee have pushed for a legislative remedy that empowers the FederalCommunications Commission (FCC) to insert itself more directly into thenegotiation process as an arbitrator.
“The problem is not that the FCClacks authority to intervene, but that a slew of poorly-designed rules nearlytwo decades old prevent geographic competition and encourage episodes ofbrinksmanship like the Fox-Cablevision fight,” said NTU Director of GovernmentAffairs Andrew Moylan. “The rules governing retransmission consent weredesigned to shield content providers from a cable monopoly that no longer exists,and now those providers are exploiting that protection to the fullest.”
Moylan urged Committee members toresist the notion that the best resolution to this problem is for government to“rearrange the regulatory deck chairs,” as has been proposed by some interestson both sides of the dispute. “The ‘thumb on the scale’ model that governsretransmission consent is outdated and needs reform,” Moylan concluded.“However, the solution is not more government manipulation, but for Congress toembark on a comprehensive rewrite of telecommunications law that allows both television service providers andcontent providers to operate in a truly free and open negotiation environment.”
The National Taxpayers Union haslong advocated for a pro-consumer, free-market approach to telecommunicationslaw that neither punishes nor gives special treatment to any entity.
NTU is a nonpartisan, nonprofit citizen group founded in 1969 to workfor lower taxes, smaller government, and economic freedom at all levels. Note: For more information on NTU’stelecom policy work, visit www.ntu.org orsend a text message to 67292.