The American Television Alliance will utilize radio, print and digital platforms to urge consumers to support the “local choice” legislation currently being considered in the Senate Commerce Committee. Meanwhile, in this writer’s market at the very least, we’re seeing NAB on television fighting for the rights of free TV.
The legislation, from Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and John Thune (R-SD) essentially creates an a la carte system that pertains to broadcasters alone. It has no bearing whatsoever on any other channels included on MVPD lineups.
“The American people need to know there is a new proposal that will give them more transparency about the costs of broadcast TV programming and will end broadcast blackouts once and for all,” ATVA spokesman Brian Frederick said. “Local choice can provide them with actual TV freedom immediately.”
He concluded, ““Local choice is a bipartisan solution that is simple and elegant. Consumers are being punished by skyrocketing broadcast TV fees and blackouts. This gives them the choice for whether they want to pay for ‘free’ TV rather than being forced to, as they are now.”
RBR-TVBR observation: Can ATVA really use the word “transparency” with a straight face? Forcing the release of one element of the equation is not transparent, it is grotesquely misleading.
We need to know how much broadcasters pay to provide local news and emergency information in the local markets they serve, compared to the usual $0 expenditure of the vast majority of cable channels for which costs can be spread about on a national basis.
We need to know much we’re paying for cable channels too. This household pays way more for ESPN every month than want to, considering we almost never watch it – but this obscenely unfair legislation gives us no opportunity to turn it down.
We need to know how much profit the MVPDs are raking in, and how much of it goes into local news and emergency information – again, that amount is almost always in the $0 range. Hell, most barely can handle routine customer service, much less critical news and information services.
Cable prices may be skyrocketing, but that was the trend before retrans was even an issue, and now, the cost of local television is only one small part of the increase, not the driver of it. Simply put, unless all of the relevant numbers are made public, the claim of transparency is a sham and the legislation a bad joke.
