CEA: Retransmission Consent Reforms Should Be In Satellite Bill

The Consumer Electronics Association has asked the leadership of the relevant House and Senate committees to include retransmission consent reforms as part of must-pass legislation reauthorizing the satellite compulsory distant-signal license.

CEA president Gary Shapiro said reauthorization of the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act was the right venue for reforming what he said were "outdated" retransmission consent regulations. He put in a plug for cable and satellite operators, saying that MVPDs "have served the broadcasters well. They retransmit the broadcaster programming into the same local market where broadcasters must, as a condition of their broadcasting license, make that programming available for free.

As a result of the quality and convenience of cable and satellite retransmissions, more than 93% of American consumers rely on multichannel video providers to receive local TV broadcast stations a dramatic change from 1992, when some 40% of households received their broadcast programming over the air." He said by contrast, "broadcasters have used the retransmission right to demand retransmission fee increases of several orders of magnitude."