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Retransmission consent is a provision of the 1992 United States Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act that requires cable operators and other multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) to obtain permission from commercial broadcasters before carrying their programming. Under the provision, a broadcast station (or its affiliated/parent broadcast network) can ask for monetary payment or other compensation, such as carriage of an additional channel. If the cable operator rejects the broadcaster's proposal, the station can prohibit the cable operator from retransmitting its signal. In the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
, the
Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...
(FCC) regulates this area of business and public policy pursuant to 47 U.S.C. Part II.


History

Since the 1960s, the
Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...
had established must carry rules, which required cable television operators to carry all significantly viewed local stations. In 1985 and 1987, the judiciary decided that the must carry rules were in violation of the
First Amendment First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and reco ...
rights of the cable operators. In response, the Congress passed the 1992 Cable Act, which established a combination of must carry and retransmission consent provisions. Stations were given the right to either require cable operators to carry their signal at no cost, or negotiate with cable operators for carriage fees that the latter could refuse. Initially, cable carriers' reaction was to refuse to pay for broadcast programming.
John Malone John Carl Malone (born March 7, 1941) is an American billionaire businessman, landowner and philanthropist. He was chief executive officer (CEO) of Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI), a cable and media giant, for twenty-four years from 1973 to 1996. ...
, head of cable giant TeleCommunications Inc. refused to pay to carry broadcasters' content saying, "I don't intend to pay any money ... I will scratch backs." Instead of monetary payment, some broadcast networks agreed to distribute secondary channels.
America's Talking America's Talking was an American short-lived cable television channel focused mainly on talk based programming, created by NBC and spun off from economic channel CNBC. It was launched on July 4, 1994, and was carried in 10 million American hous ...
(now
MSNBC MSNBC (originally the Microsoft National Broadcasting Company) is an American news-based pay television cable channel. It is owned by NBCUniversala subsidiary of Comcast. Headquartered in New York City, it provides news coverage and political ...
), FX, and
ESPN2 ESPN2 is an American multinational pay television network owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company (which owns a controlling 80% stake) and Hearst Communications (which owns the remaining 20%). ESPN2 was initially fo ...
all originated through retransmission consent deals in the early 1990s. Many PBS stations received additional local channels. However, in the mid 2000s the stations succeeded in earning carriage fees from cable/satellite systems.


Legislative history

Legislation governing the retransmission of broadcast television content by satellite companies is required to be renewed on a regular basis. As of 2018, the legislation has been enacted four times. These acts renewed statutory licenses that allow satellite TV companies to retransmit broadcast stations to their customers: * 1999:
Satellite Home Viewer Improvement Act A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioisotop ...
* 2004:
Satellite Home Viewer Extension and Reauthorization Act A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioisotop ...
* 2010: Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act * 2014: STELA Reauthorization Act


Debate

Retransmission consent has drawn criticism from the cable operators who redistribute programming, and therefore must seek consent from the broadcasters for their program content. Cable programmers have argued that there is a "shift in leverage toward broadcasters" within the market since introduction of retransmission compensation. Broadcasters typically claim that the programming they provide costs money, and these retransmission fees allow them to provide this expensive programming. Further, the Cable Act created retransmission consent in order to fix a market imbalance and the marketplace and contract disputes should be addressed in the marketplace.


Programming disruptions

Cable operators typically claim during a carriage dispute that the broadcasters are forcing the viewing public to pay for content that is essentially given away for free to those who use an antenna to receive the station. Alternatively, broadcasters have argued that the free market approach discourages carriage disputes. In a 2013 op-ed, former FCC commissioner, Robert McDowell, argued:
TV stations make more money as more people see their shows, thus creating an incentive to distribute their product as widely as possible. These same market forces also create a disincentive for broadcasters to withhold their signals from distributors like cable and satellite companies.


See also

* Carriage dispute * Fee-for-carriage - a similar proposed policy supported by broadcasters in
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...
*
Must-carry In cable television, governments apply a must-carry regulation stating that locally licensed television stations must be carried on a cable provider's system. North America Canada Under current CRTC regulations, the lowest tier of service on ...
*
Significantly viewed Significantly viewed signals permitted to be carried or Significantly Viewed list (SV) is a federal law permitting television stations as determined by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), to be carried by cable and other MVPD providers ...


References

{{Reflist Broadcast law Cable television in the United States Television terminology United States communications regulation Television controversies