Smaller pay television providers are under assault from the excessive demands of local TV stations. Congress needs to step in and support legislative reforms that curb the undue price hikes and sudden signal blackouts designed to turn consumers against their traditional pay-TV providers.
As a small cable operator from Southeast Missouri, I was invited to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee in June to talk about how fees charged by broadcasters are leading to more and more TV blackouts.
In the four months since I testified, things have gotten much worse. Since my appearance on Capitol Hill, there have been 216 broadcaster blackouts, impacting 138 markets across 44 states. That’s 216 blackouts in the past 134 days alone! Additionally, a new poll shows that 1 in 3 television or streaming users has been the victim of one of these blackouts.
This week, the Senate Commerce Committee will consider legislation that is designed to protect consumers from broadcaster abuses. The limited oversight provided to the Federal Communications Commission known as “good faith” rules are included in the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act Reauthorization Act of 2014, which Congress must reauthorize before the end of the year. Failure to do so will leave hundreds of small cable operators and millions of consumers without protections that have been in place for many years.
