Broadcasters must think about what’s needed in their...
Broadcasters must think about what’s needed in their retransmission consent negotiations as they send in their must carry/retrans election letters to cable and satellite providers in their markets, said a broadcast attorney. The deadline for sending the carriage election letters…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
to multichannel video distribution providers is Oct. 1. This will be the first set of election letters that stations must immediately upload to their online public inspection file, said Pillsbury Winthrop TV station lawyer Scott Flick Thursday in a blog post (http://bit.ly/1txZclk). The impact of these elections is becoming more significant, he said. Retrans revenue must be considered as essential to both short-term and long-term survival, he said. Economic forces “are driving consolidation in the TV industry,” he said. Single stations and small station groups “have to punch well above their weight by employing smart executives and counsel with deep experience in retrans negotiations to survive in this increasingly harsh environment,” wrote Flick. Under the FCC prohibition on joint retrans negotiations, a station that fails to sell to a larger broadcaster possessing the skill and mass necessary to effectively negotiate retrans agreements “risks losing its network affiliation to just such a station group, precisely because that group can frequently deliver better retrans results,” he said.