Today, an op-ed from Robert C. Kenny, director of public affairs for TVfreedom.org, ran in The Hill, discussing the misinformation campaign promulgated by the pay-TV industry in Washington, D.C.

According to the pay-TV lobby, the retransmission consent regime is broken, leading to programming blackouts. The facts, however, tell another story: over 3,000 blackouts have occurred due to the failures of the pay-TV networks, while retransmission consent disputes have caused five interruptions during the same time period. TVfreedom.org is seeking holistic reform based on a broader congressional examination of the copyright and communications laws impacted by recent advances in technology, rather than a narrowly focused, pay-TV-driven inquiry into retransmission consent.

Read more about how pay-TV is twisting the facts in the full op-ed here.

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As hordes of pay-TV lobbyists try to convince Congress that the current retransmission consent regime is broken, they are keeping American consumers in the dark about some very troubling statistics. The cable and satellite industry would like for lawmakers to believe that most broadcast TV “blackouts” are caused by programming disputes, but the reality is very different. So far in 2014, faulty and outdated pay-TV infrastructure has caused 3,050 service interruptions for subscribers to the top five pay-TV providers, while retrans disputes have caused only five interruptions. It is important to note that the number of pay-TV-induced blackouts due to service failures would increase to an even larger number if all cable and satellite TV service providers across the U.S. were included in the tally. Take a look at the following graphic and then you make the determination about what’s really causing headaches for consumers:

For more information, please visit the TVfreedom.org YouTube page to watch consumer-friendly videos aimed at pushing back on the pay-TV industry’s gamesmanship in the marketplace and the ongoing abusive billing and business practices hurting consumers.

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By Robert C. Kenny | June 16, 2014

Today, TVfreedom.org released a new video featuring the real-world experiences of cable and satellite TV subscribers who expressed frustration with their unreliable pay-TV service, faulty equipment, arbitrary price hikes and poor customer service when contacting their respective service providers for help.

These problems are systemic in nature and signal that the pay-TV regime is in need of a regulatory overhaul. Despite instituting lucrative price hikes year after year, cable and satellite TV operators have failed to deliver any noticeable improvements in service delivery.

Given the pay-TV industry’s poor track record, an increasing number of customers have become disenfranchised with their pay-TV experience and are in search of competitive alternatives for their video services. However, due to a lack of viable alternatives for service in many parts of the country, millions of pay-TV subscribers are forced to shell out extra money to either terminate their lackluster pay-TV service before their multi-year contracts are up, or maintain their costly service with no relief in sight while still under contract.

As pay-TV’s profits continue to skyrocket due to across-the-board fee increases, many Americans are perplexed and wondering, “Why does my monthly bill continue to go up with very little in return?”

Learn more about pay-TV’s consumer rip-off at TVfreedom.org, and watch the new video here.

Please also visit the TVfreedom.org YouTube web page to watch other consumer-friendly videos aimed at pushing back on the pay-TV industry’s gamesmanship in the marketplace and the ongoing abusive billing and business practices hurting consumers.

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Robert C Kenny is the Director of Public Affairs for TVfreedom.org, a coalition of local broadcasters, community advocates, network TV affiliate associations, and other independent organizations; he formerly served as Press Secretary at the FCC.

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Today, an op-ed from TVfreedom.org member Richard Schneider was posted in Roll Call,emphasizing the importance of over-the-air broadcasting in the United States. The op-ed references the growing number of Americans who are choosing to opt out of their monthly pay-TV subscriptions, instead choosing to access free, over-the-air television through antennas. As Congress continues to debate the reauthorization of STELA, Schneider notes how important it is for our lawmakers to protect Americans’ access to broadcast television.

Schneider is the founder and owner of Antennas Direct, a Missouri-based antenna distribution company. He has seen first-hand how customers’ negative experiences with pay-TV have led to a record number of Americans electing to “cut the cord.”

The following is a quote from the piece, which can be read in full here.

 

Americans are growing frustrated with the deceptive billing practices and poor customer service of their pay-TV providers. More people are cutting the cord and enjoying emancipation from their pay-TV bills. They are finding over-the-air television offers a respite from the pay-TV shell game and discovering better picture quality, dozens of new digital channels and a free viewing experience. It is a viable alternative to the gamesmanship of pay-TV, and one that should be protected in the reauthorization of STELA.

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This week, TVfreedom.org spokesman Robert C. Kenny posted a guest blog on Broadcasting & Cable regarding the importance of local broadcasters in emergency situations. When severe weather or other dire conditions threaten our communities, no one else is better equipped to provide accurate, timely and locally-tailored information to a specific region than broadcasters. In the post, Kenny cites recent natural disasters in the United States as evidence that Americans look to the trusted and familiar faces of their local newspersons and meteorologists to guide and inform them through difficult and dangerous circumstances.

Below is an excerpt from the blog post, which can be read in full here.

 

Across the country, local broadcasters remain dutifully faithful to their role as first informers in the communities they serve. They are a first line of defense for families, friends and neighbors when potentially life-changing weather events threaten their communities.  At a moment’s notice, local TV broadcasters quite literally put themselves in the “eye of the storm” in order to keep their communities informed with up-to-the minute news and weather coverage. In addition, broadcasters’ invaluable on-the-ground “know-how” and local expertise makes them truly irreplaceable in relating important news to their communities.

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By Robert C. Kenny | June 9, 2014 

TVfreedom.org today released a new video which features real people’s feelings on their overall experiences dealing with pay-TV service providers. The experiences and opinions people conveyed as part of these interviews centered on one common theme: Americans are fed up with the great pay-TV rip-off!

Victimized by a lack of transparency related to unexplained and surprise charges on monthly bills, and a poor customer service experience, the people we spoke with expressed incredible frustration with their pay-TV service providers.

Many of the featured pay-TV customers felt cornered into price increases for the same level of service or less; they say their monthly bills are becoming more expensive year after year with no noticeable improvements in service quality.

Additionally, with pay-TV companies dominating the market in specific neighborhoods across the country, most people felt discouraged by the lack of competitive alternatives available to them. Most notably, the people interviewed articulated that they were confused as to how cable bills are calculated for the services rendered. They also questioned why the price they pay is compared to that of their neighbors by some service providers to justify arbitrary increases to their monthly bills in cases in which they may have been paying less than others in their community.

According to a new study from the Washington Post, 72 percent of Americans feel that “cable companies are predatory in their practices and take advantage of consumers’ lack of choice.” The same study notes that 53 percent of Americans would “leave [their] current cable company if [they] actually had a choice.” These same sentiments were echoed by those interviewed in the TVfreedom video.

The Americans we spoke with were from different backgrounds and geographical regions, but the feelings were generally the same across the board: dealing with pay-TV is a universally negative experience and a rip-off.

The full video is available here.

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Robert C Kenny is the Director of Public Affairs for TVfreedom.org, a coalition of local broadcasters, community advocates, network TV affiliate associations, and other independent organizations; he formerly served as Press Secretary at the FCC.

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By Robert C. Kenny | June 6, 2014

Robert C. Kenny, Director of Public Affairs, TVfreedom.org writes on The Hill’s Congress Blog about the potential market-changing effects STELA reauthorizations legislation, if passed into law, would have on local TV stations and their viewers, especially in small-town America.  The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee should take TV broadcaster concerns into consideration when developing the full Committee’s STELA reauthorization legislation for a vote later this year.  Kenny writes:

 The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee, led by Chairman John D. Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and ranking member John Thune (R-S.D.), is currently considering whether to reauthorize the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act (STELA), and embrace the pay-TV lobbyist agenda advocating legislative add-ons that seek to dramatically alter the competitive landscape of the U.S. video marketplace. 

As a recurring event in Washington, the STELA reauthorization process typically invokes a narrowly tailored debate among parties interested in the delivery of local and distant broadcast TV signals to their customers.   

Yet, this year’s effort is significantly broader in scope with the well-funded pay-TV lobby seeking to advance legislation designed to give the cable and satellite TV industry the upper-hand over TV broadcasters in retransmission consent negotiations and the fierce battle for valuable local advertising revenues.

The Senate is contemplating a blanket prohibition on multiple TV stations from entering into joint retransmission consent negotiations and joint sales agreements to secure advertising revenues, while pay-TV operators remain free to negotiate jointly to sell local advertising without regulatory restriction. 

Moreover, Rockefeller and Thune are considering whether to eliminate the lifeline basic service tier on the cheapest cable programming package that would negatively impact the affordability of and access to broadcast content for America’s pay-TV viewers.

Beyond distorting the existing regulatory playing field, the pay-TV lobbyist-supported STELA add-ons would hinder the ability of mid-size and smaller local TV stations to effectively tap into their main revenue streams.

Make no mistake: the sustainability and ultimate survival of America’s local broadcasters is threatened by this so-called pay-TV-led ‘reform’ effort.  

Read the full post here.

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Robert C Kenny is the Director of Public Affairs for TVfreedom.org, a coalition of local broadcasters, community advocates, network TV affiliate associations, and other independent organizations; he formerly served as Press Secretary at the FCC.

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By Robert C. Kenny | June 4, 2014

Washington policymakers are currently deciding the future of our nation’s video marketplace in a 21st Century broadband world.

Debate now centers on the existing retransmission consent process that enables broadcasters to obtain compensation for their television programs distributed by Pay-TV providers on cable and satellite systems across the country.

The pay-TV industry seeks to make so-called “reforms” to the existing retransmission consent process under the banner of protecting consumers from ‘skyrocketing’ retrans fees that they are “forced” to pass along to their cable and satellite TV subscribers.

Yet the cable and satellite TV industry’s concern for consumers appears non-existent when the spotlight turns to the disproportionate price increases in consumers’ monthly pay-TV bills. Pay-TV price increases have hit family budgets hard during the economic downturn, expanding at nearly four times the rate of inflation even for access to the least expensive pay-TV programming package.

What is the pay-TV industry’s response to government data confirming runaway monthly cable and satellite TV bills due to the new and creative ways they’re charging customers for service? They say the FCC data is outdated and nothing more than a distraction.

Their plan is to simply mask the real reasons for rising monthly cable bills by blaming higher subscriber costs on retransmission consent fees.

Let’s take a closer look. Pay-TV sports programming aired by regional sports networks is highly coveted. Pay-TV providers that secure lucrative exclusive deals with professional sports teams to air regular season games on their systems appear to have no qualms about raising monthly programming costs for their customers.

Time Warner Cable, for example, is now charging its customers nearly $5 per month to watch Dodgers’ baseball, and failed to make any concessions for competitors seeking to sign deals with TWC for the rights to air those games too. TWC requires every one of their customers and that of other pay-TV providers to pay for the programming even if they will never watch it. As a result, the stalemate between TWC and other pay-TV operators in the Los Angeles television market drags on.

The American Television Alliance (ATVA), the TWC, DirecTV and the Dish Network lobbying arm in Washington, continues to claim that the retransmission consent system is broken, even in the face of publicly available data demonstrating the existence of only four retransmission disputes in 2014.

In reality, pay-TV service disruptions resulting from bad weather or lousy service occur at a significantly higher rate than retransmission consent disputes.

In light of these frequent service disruptions, rather than paying DC lobbyists, the pay-TV industry as a whole may be better served by focusing its attention on further enhancing infrastructure investment to address and improve existing networks and customer service quality in the form of reliable service delivery and quick service restoration.

The pay-TV industry has several tools at its disposal to improve a customer’s experience and ensure they have timely and adequate data regarding service disruptions and network outages. One such tool can be found online at www.downdetector.com.

The site maintains continuous updates on current service disruptions experienced by nearly 300 service providers operating in the U.S.

This type of application or one that offers similar functionality should be in every service provider’s and consumer’s catalog of web “favorites.” These tools can provide significant value by utilizing data collected from users’ online social media input to provide the public with timely information on current broadband and pay-TV system service disruptions and network outages on a revolving basis.

Public safety would also benefit from such network outage maps available for cable, phone and satellite TV companies providing service in their communities.

According to Downdetector, which reports on the 50 most recent service disruptions experienced by U.S. companies on a continual basis, big pay-TV operators commonly experience a prominent number of disruptions to their Internet and/or pay-TV services on a daily basis. To put this in perspective, in just one day, pay-TV operators may experience more service disruptions or network outages due to bad weather or some other cause for network failure than those created by TV blackouts in retransmission disputes within an entire year.

Proactively investing in new technologies and capabilities to enhance the consumer’s video experience is an effort that the pay-TV industry should embark upon, rather than continuing its misaligned priorities, such as funding DC lobbying efforts to change an existing market-driven retransmission consent system that’s currently working.

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Robert C Kenny is the Director of Public Affairs for TVfreedom.org, a coalition of local broadcasters, community advocates, network TV affiliate associations, and other independent organizations; he formerly served as Press Secretary at the FCC.

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Pay-TV claims of innocence in retransmission consent disputes are belied by their desire to push broadcast TV content behind the ‘pay-wall’ on every platform

By Robert C. Kenny | June 2, 2014

Over the past two years, the pay-TV industry has been pushing for video marketplace changes in Congress in the name of ‘consumer protection,’ targeting retransmission consent fees TV broadcasters receive from cable and satellite TV systems to air local TV stations’ broadcast network programming and local news.

Pay-TV operators are seeking to curtail broadcasters’ flexibility in retransmission consent negotiation and eliminate a series of rules that ultimately will force all consumers to pay more for access to the most popular TV programming. Pay-TV is right about one thing. Consumers need government reform of the rules governing video services. But that effort should focus on reforming the pay-TV industry, not eliminating local television.

The truth is TV stations aren’t causing monthly cable bills to soar. Cable bills go up every year because consumers are being forced to pay significantly higher fees across the board.

The pay-TV industry is notorious for padding its revenue through a barrage of abusive billing and business practices, including erroneous overbilling, excessive equipment rental fees, and ‘extra’ service charges. For example, though Apple TV and Kindle Fire TV devices retail for $99, the pay-TV industry won’t allow them to be connected directly to their systems. Pay-TV operators instead prefer to bilk consumers for $7 billion annually in monthly rental fees for outdated equipment that stymies innovation and competition. In addition, pay-TV consumers are paying inflated prices for cable channels that few watch.

Pay-TV operators are using blackouts to divert attention from their abusive business practices. They created the American Television Alliance (ATVA) to make local TV stations the Washington scapegoat for increasing cable bills.

ATVA claims the retransmission consent rules are responsible for a ‘record number’ of TV blackouts without acknowledging the hundreds… if not thousands … of retransmission consent deals that are reached between broadcasters and pay-TV operators nationwide each year.

In addition, public data reveals that just four retransmission consent disputes that began on or after January 1, 2014 have resulted in TV blackouts. All but one have been resolved, with two deals struck between parties within hours of the initial impasses.

Amidst hundreds of deals negotiated in 2013, a total of 19 retransmission disputes unfolded that resulted in disruptions to pay-TV viewers’ access to local broadcast TV news and programming. What’s important here though is that the vast majority of these 2013 cases were settled quickly after being blocked by pay-TV systems.

In addition, all broadcast TV programming remained accessible to TV viewers free, over-the-air via an antenna throughout the duration of these disruptions. The programming also remained available on other pay-TV systems.

Do these statistics highlight a glaring problem? Do they truly signal a broken video marketplace in need of reform?

TVfreedom.org coalition members don’t think so. The fact of the matter is that pay-TV service outages occur across the country at a remarkably higher rate due to bad weather or lousy service than as a result of retransmission consent disputes. Indeed, thunderstorms often knock satellite TV systems off the air, especially for consumers with outdated equipment, on a routine basis.

Pay-TV claims of innocence in retransmission consent disputes are belied by their desire to push broadcast TV content behind the ‘pay-wall’ on every platform, including the Internet. In seeking exclusive online content distribution, cable and satellite TV operators have, in the past, demanded that TV broadcast networks stop making the majority of their popular programming available to other highly successful digital consumer outlets, such as Amazon, Hulu and Netflix. That is anti-consumer.

In contrast, TV broadcast networks recognize the potential negative consequences of these exclusive deals on consumers and the industry, and are reluctant to give such gatekeeper power to pay-TV operators in today’s broadband world.

The pay-TV industry’s motives for reform are crystal clear. It seeks to control access to all TV content, drive up prices for America’s cable and satellite TV subscribers, and diminish the ability of broadcasters to serve as a viable market force in delivering popular programs to consumers on a variety of competitive digital platforms.

Considering the questionable business practices of pay-TV operators and their anti-competitive demands in retransmission consent negotiations with local TV stations, one must ask: are their calls for reform genuinely being made in the interest of consumers?

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Robert C Kenny is the Director of Public Affairs for TVfreedom.org, a coalition of local broadcasters, community advocates, network TV affiliate associations, and other independent organizations; he formerly served as Press Secretary at the FCC.

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