If you live in one of certain key markets – such as Green Bay, WI; Buffalo, NY; Indianapolis, IN; Dayton, OH; Austin, TX; Toledo, OH; Springfield, MA; Fort Wayne, IN; Mobile, AL; Terra Haute, IN; or Columbus, OH – you may have a keener interest in the issue of retransmission consent than other readers of this blog.

The basics: Cable operators and other Multichannel Video Programming Distributors can’t retransmit broadcast signals (such as NBC, ABC, CBS, or Fox) without first obtaining the broadcaster’s consent.

TV station group LIN TV and Time Warner Cable have been in negotiations, but haven’t reached an agreement. At midnight last Friday morning when the existing carriage deal expired, LIN pulled the signals of 15 stations in 11 markets from Time Warner systems, which affects about 2.7 million of their subscribers.

While negotiations continued over the weekend, alternatives were promoted. LIN suggested Time Warner customers could switch to such competitors as Dish Network or FiOS TV. Time Warner has given away around 50,000 antennas to allow over-the-air reception of those broadcast signals and has also produced an online video that shows people how they can watch some broadcast programming over the Internet for free.

If you missed NCTA’s Kyle McSlarrow on C-SPAN’s The Communicators Saturday night, you can now watch the episode online (or catch the repeat tonight on C-SPAN 2 at 8:00 p.m. ET). One of the first questions he addressed was the issue of retransmission consent. NCTA has expressed concern that a number of carriage deals are set to expire at the end of this year, about six weeks before the Digital Television Transition occurs on February 17. There is potential for consumer confusion and disruption with these deals being renegotiated during this period.

While the NAB has volunteered a four-week quiet period surrounding the DTV transition date – two weeks before Feb. 17 and two weeks after – McSlarrow has proposed that a slightly longer quiet period would be beneficial for consumers, while hardly tipping the balance of power in retrans negotiations.

Earlier this week, the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on telecommunications and the Internet held a hearing: “Status of the DTV Transition: 154 Days and Counting.” As a reminder that the Digital TV Transition is about over-the-air broadcast TV stations, one could note some of the issues raised in press coverage.

• Lawmakers See Challenges for TV Transition (WaPo)
• Early Digital-TV Switch Has Flaw: Viewers Could Lose Certain Channels on Permanent Basis (WSJ)

Some viewers had issues in Wilmington with over-the-air reception of the new DTV signal; some had problems setting up converter boxes with their analog TV sets.

NCTA President & CEO Kyle McSlarrow had a little different perspective, as he testified at that hearing. He focused on the issue of retransmission consent and how it would be effected by the transition. This FCC fact sheet covers the details, but suffice to say that retrans (and the related term “must carry”) refer to how cable operators can carry broadcast stations.

Here is some of the coverage of his testimony:

• Retranmission Deals May Get Derailed by DTV Transition, Cable Operators Warn (TV Week)
• McSlarrow: Retrans Uncertainty Creates Cable ‘Storm’ (MediaDailyNews)
• DTV “quiet period” debate gets noisy in Congress (Ars Technica)

Here is a link to the text of McSlarrow’s comments and I’ve embedded the audio below (which runs just under six minutes).

 

 McSlarrow Testimony 9/16/08: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

To help you understand this, you need to understand that retrans and must carry play a critical role in ensuring you can see your local broadcast stations as part of your cable lineup.  Some of the existing deals will lapse around the end of the year, right before the Feb. 17 transition date.

Last month, the NAB Board of Directors pledged to identify a Retransmission Consent Quiet Period. NCTA issued this statement:

“In recent months, we have discussed with NAB the need to recognize the potential for consumer confusion and disruption involved with retransmission consent disputes that might arise as we approach the broadcasters’ digital TV transition on February 17, 2009. We appreciate NAB’s acknowledgment that this is a very real concern, and continue to support efforts to minimize potential consumer confusion through the adoption of a quiet period. But the reality is that many outstanding retransmission consent agreements expire by the end of 2008. Any voluntary quiet period that does not begin before the agreements actually expire – or which is too brief to preclude potentially confusing messages about broadcast carriage during the time of the actual DTV transition – represents the illusion of a commitment and does not serve the consumer.”