Univision Asks FCC for Retransmission Exemption

Univision Communications is asking the Federal Communications Commission to allow the company to continue negotiating retransmission consent deals for all Entravision Communications TV stations -- even though most broadcasters could soon be barred from negotiating retrans agreements for multiple stations in the same market. Univision is seeking special relief from the FCC because the agency is expected to adopt a new regulation on March 31 that would generally bar broadcasters from joint TV station retransmission consent negotiations.

The proposed regulations could throw a monkey wrench into Univision and Entravision’s existing negotiations, because Univision currently negotiates retransmission deals for Entravision and each of the companies currently owns non-top 4 ranked stations in six of the same markets. “A negative presumption with respect to joint negotiations by separately owned, same-market, non top-4 stations would have the effect of preventing UTG (Univision Television Group) from negotiating on behalf of some, but not all, of the Entravision stations, thereby diminishing the efficiencies of group negotiations,” Univision said in its FCC disclosure letter, adding that an unnamed but major pay TV provider has asked that Univision negotiate retrans deals in Entravision’s behalf. We urged the commission to address this anomalous situation by creating an exemption from the negative presumption where group-wide negotiations by one broadcaster on behalf of another involve a subset of collocated non top-4 rated stations,” Univision said. “Alternatively, we proposed that this sort of unique circumstance be deemed sufficient to overcome the negative presumption.”