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According to a recent survey of small cable operators by the American Cable Association (ACA), retransmission fees (which are the fees charged to us by the local broadcast channels) represent the fastest growing part of customers’ cable bills.
ACA members (like BBC) reported that they will be forced to pay corporate broadcasters an average of 88% more in fees by 2020. Based on ACA’s calculations, its member cable companies were paying $11 on average per subscriber per month in 2017, which will increase to an average of $19 per subscriber per month by 2020.
In fact, although there are only a handful of local broadcast “off air” channels, they make up 23% of our total programming costs. This is ridiculous!
Retransmission consent is a federal law and regulation that was created more than 25 years ago to give broadcasters the right to request that cable TV companies either have to carry their channels, or that they could charge us for carrying their channels. But this law has never been changed to take into consideration the massive consolidation in the television network and broadcast group industry. With this law currently still in place, “Corporate broadcasters have become increasingly aggressive over the years in charging for retransmission consent, and it’s clear that they have no reservations taking escalating amounts of money from consumers to line their pockets,” said Matthew M. Polka, ACA president and CEO.
Polka added: “The corporate broadcasters are out of control. No other industry operates this way. No other sector would get away with such massive price increases in just three years. Why is this okay? Quite simply, it is not, and consumers should not have to pay the bill for something Washington should have changed years, if not decades, ago.”
To learn more about this law and how it affects your TV bill, go to www.TVonmyside.com.
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