[opendtv] Broadcasters Fight SHVERA Modifications
- From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 9 Oct 2009 18:35:33 -0500
How timely.
I think it is probably time for a major paradigm shift, where OTA networks
should be allowed to operate a lot more like the DBS networks want to operate.
Either that, or the OTA system won't survive at all.
It seems to me that these retran consent agreements might make sense if the
local broadcaster content in MVPDs is the majority of their total offerings.
When local broadcaster content is a tiny fraction, why doesn't it make more
sense to split off the news crews and have them act as free agents? Even in the
OTA networks.
The bulk of content, OTA and MVPD, comes from the congloms anyway. So, let any
distribution pipe treat this bulk of their content the same way. The local news
crews don't need to be artifically tied to *a* conglom asnymore. The
distribution pipe can decide which news programs to transmit, if any, and
schedule them as they see fit.
Bert
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http://www.tvtechnology.com/article/88450
Broadcasters Fight SHVERA Modifications
10.08.2009.
The debate about which broadcast signals satellite operators can carry into
each designated market area continued this week on Capitol Hill. Broadcasters
want to keep a lid on signal importation from outside markets to protect
incumbent stations. Satellite operators can import distant signals to
households that have no local, over-the-air reception, but they want more
flexibility for several reasons, including leverage in retransmission
negotiations with broadcasters.
This distant signal issue has been at the heart of each renewal of the
Satellite Home Viewer Extension and Reauthorization Act--SHERVA--due again this
year.
"If a cable or satellite system serving one community is permitted to import
the same programming from distant, out-of-market stations, the viewing audience
of the local station will be fragmented--advertising rates will plummet--and
the ability of local television stations to provide costly local news, weather,
emergency information, and local public affairs programming will, plainly, be
diminished," Paul Karpowicz told the Senate Commerce communications
subcommittee during a hearing on Wednesday.
Karpowicz (pictured right) is chairman of the TV board of the National
Association of Broadcasters and president of Meredith Broadcasting's 11-station
group. He urged the subcommittee to reject market-modification proposals that
would allow DirecTV and Dish Network from importing duplicate, distant signals.
He said the DBS operators were already allowed to negotiate with stations
directly for carriage of local news and public affairs programming with no
change to SHERVA law. Cable operators do so, but DBS operators so far have not,
he said.
"Our station in Atlanta has signed an agreement with a cable operator in
northwest Georgia to allow it to carry non-duplicating, locally originated
programming to Georgia residents in the Chattanooga, Tennessee, market,"
Karpowicz testified. "Similar in-state carriage arrangements with local
television stations exist across the country. Regrettably, satellite carriers
have refused to participate in these carriage arrangements."
The wholesale importation of distant signals would interfere with contractual
agreements between stations and networks, he said.
For satellite operators, adhering entirely to broadcast market boundaries is
somewhat complicated. The service is typically distributed via East and West
Coast feeds. Current law directs DBS to "carry one, carry all" broadcast
signals in a given market, but lawmakers have pushed the industry to carry
"local-into-local" signals in all 210 DMAs. Neither DBS operator has completed
the task. DirecTV provides local stations in 152 markets; Dish, 182.
The broadcast lobby supports the completion of local-into-local in all markets,
but DBS executives say its cost prohibitive. Dish Executive Vice President and
General Counsel Stanton Dodge told the subcommittee that the DBS had 29 markets
remaining, and it would cost around $35 million to build the infrastructure for
delivering local TV signals. Recurring costs would be around $15 million a year.
"Our ability to recoup this substantial investment is constrained by the small
size of many of the remaining markets. For instance, there are fewer than four
thousand households in the Glendive, Mont. designated market area. This
provides very few potential households to subscribe to our service to help
defray those costs, yet the costs to provide a local-into-local service are
largely fixed," he said in prepared testimony.
"Launching 29 additional markets would require us to find or create capacity
for approximately 100 additional channels on a system that is effectively at,
or near, full capacity today."
Dodge went on to note that in 26 of those 29 markets, at least one of the big
four broadcast network affiliates--ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox--is unavailable as a
primary fee. He urged lawmakers to allow DBS operators to serve these "short
markets" with imported signals.
Karpowicz countered that secondary broadcast digital feeds should instead be
carried.
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