ACA to Pai: Blackouts Are Bad-Faith Bargaining Tactics

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The American Cable Association wrote Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai Oct 3 to ask him to add retransmission blackouts to the list of off-limits bad-faith bargaining. The FCC has rules that require bargaining in good faith, but under Democratic chair Tom Wheeler, it chose not to add blackouts to that list when asked by the ACA and others to do so. It is unlikely that Chairman Pai will go where a Democratic predecessor did not, but ACA cited Lilly Broadcasting's brief blackout on Dish in a Hurricane Maria-affected market as the kind of "intolerable" situation that needed FCC remedy, as well as pointing to Pai's concerns about that blackout.


ACA to Pai: Blackouts Are Bad-Faith Bargaining Tactics