Cherry Picking Local-into-Local TV Service is Discriminatory
DirecTV recently launched a new satellite that enables the pay-TV giant to deliver expanded 4K digital TV services to its customers who can afford to pay for premium service. Yet, DirecTV has never made good on a promise it made to the Federal Communications Commission in 2003 as part of a previous merger approval.
Today, DirecTV inexplicably denies tens of thousands of its subscribers access to local broadcast TV service in the following 11 local markets operating across 10 states: Alpena, MI; Bowling Green, KY; Casper and Riverton, WY; Cheyenne, WY and Scottsbluff; NE; Glendive, MT; Grand Junction and Montrose, CO; Helena, MT; North Platte, NE; Ottumwa, IA and Kirksville, MO; Presque Isle, ME; and Victoria, TX.
In addition to sitting on massive profits and facing no technological barriers preventing it from addressing this glaring service gap, DirectTV simply failed to invest in the infrastructure needed to deliver local into local TV service to rural customers in these local TV markets.
As a result, it could be argued that DirecTV’s behavior is a form of redlining.
Why would DirecTV cherry pick only markets in urban America to deliver local into local TV service? Why deny access to emergency alerts and warnings, local news and political debate coverage to rural America?
Interestingly, its competitor, Dish Network, made the necessary investments years ago and, today, delivers local-into-local broadcast TV service to all of its customers in every local TV market in the country.
For decades, local TV stations have served as a primary source of entertainment, local news and lifesaving weather alerts in communities large and small. Nowhere has that been more evident than in the nation’s heartland, where broadcasters serve as first-informers in times of disaster. Often, it’s the local TV station that is the only reliable and trusted source for news and information when cellphone networks crash and Internet service proves unreliable.
As FCC chairman Tom Wheeler said in April, “From a historical perspective, over-the-air broadcasting has contributed immeasurably to providing our uniquely diverse society with a sense of community, with a sense of shared experience.” The Chairman went on to acknowledge the major contributions that broadcasters make each day serving as first informers, putting themselves in harm’s way to provide viewers with an invaluable and vital “information lifeline” during emergencies.
DirecTV customers in Cheyenne and Scottsbluff want to receive local news and programming from their local TV stations, not from another station whose distant broadcast signal is imported by the company into local markets from hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles away.
Investment in rural America matters. Surely the tens of thousands of DirecTV customers impacted by this situation would embrace the company’s investment in localism. Such a commitment would ultimately expand their customers’ access to the trusted and reliable broadcast TV reporting that local stations deliver to viewers year round.
It’s time for DirecTV to end this discriminatory practice and make good on this broken promise.
The pay-TV giant needs to make good on its promise of 12 years ago to federal regulators and not allow it to fall victim to its anticipated merger with AT&T in the coming weeks.
It will certainly be disheartening if a promise made by DirecTV to secure an earlier merger is dismissed by the FCC as part of its approval of the company’s new merger with AT&T. What would that say about DirecTV’s view of Rural America?
Kenny is director of Public Affairs for TVfreedom.org, a coalition of local broadcasters, community advocates, network TV affiliate associations and other independent organizations advocating for preserving the retransmission consent regime. He is a former press secretary at the FCC.
