Net-Affil Peace Raises Troubling Reality

[Commentary] Representatives and the major broadcast networks and their affiliates last week hand-delivered to key Federal Communications Commission officials what amounts to a treaty formally ending seven years of hostilities between them. But Jessell is not sure that this happy state has arrived because the network and affiliates were able to work out their differences over program preemptions. That was never the real issue. He thinks it had far more to do with the networks' changing strategies. Networks are no longer interested in owning more TV stations and are thus no longer a threat to the affiliates. Seven years ago, the networks wanted to raise the FCC cap on station ownership and buy more stations, figuring that that was the best means of capturing a better return on their hefty investment in primetime programming. The affiliates of that day rightly feared that the networks would take away their businesses or their jobs. The affiliates' FCC complaint against the networks was always a small part of the larger battle being waged at the FCC, in Congress and before the federal courts over the station ownership cap. But sometime over the past two or three years, the network decided that owning more TV stations wasn't such a good idea anymore. As if one, they turned their sights to the Internet and to trying to figure out how to exploit it as an alternative outlet for their programming. Ironically, after all the spilt blood in Washington, the networks have been shedding stations. Seven years ago, the affiliates may have feared a network takeover, but at least they could take comfort in knowing they had a business that the networks coveted. They no longer can.
http://www.tvnewsday.com/articles/2008/06/20/daily.6/