Broadcasters: End the March Toward Retransmission Reform Madness

Broadcasters that have coalesced into the TVFreedom.org effort to push back on retrans reform proposals are using March Madness to make their point. In a new campaign, “Pay-TV’s Bracket Scheme: Stop the Pay-TV Madness,” that is more hardball than roundball, the group takes aim at MVPDs who it says "gouge" customers and "manufacture" blackouts by "saddling" them with early termination fees. The ad was being touted the same day National Association of Broadcasters TV board chair Marci Burdick was making the same argument in a Hill hearing on satellite legislation, pointing out that an impediment to cord cutting during retrans impasses was the high cost -- $400-plus she suggested -- of some pay-TV termination fees.