The greed of it all

[Commentary] The pay-TV industry has been pushing for video marketplace changes for the past few years that would provide them with an unfair regulatory advantage over TV broadcasters. The motive: Pure greed on the part of cable and satellite TV providers. Big pay-TV wants to create a broadcast TV only ‘a la carte’ model for customers on cable and satellite TV systems, eliminate the lifeline basic service tier provision on cable TV, and insert the Federal Communications Commission in the middle of retransmission consent negotiations to help broker deals when negotiations stall.

[Kenny is the director of public affairs for TVfreedom.org, a coalition of local broadcasters, community advocates, network TV affiliate associations and other independent organizations.]