NAB President: Pay-TV Providers Trying to Pad Their Wallets

National Association of Broadcasters president Gordon Smith plans to lay into multichannel video programming distributor (MVPDs, or pay-TV providers) in a speech Jan 21. He will also argue that the Federal Communications Commission's hard date for TV stations moving to new channels in the post-incentive auction repack could threaten diversity.

Smith says the FCC "must resist the pay TV industry’s attempt to further pad its wallets through unnecessary government intervention in retransmission consent negotiations." The FCC is currently in the midst of a congressionally mandated review of what constitutes good faith negotiations. "The pay TV industry’s goal is obvious – as former monopolists, these companies would rather not pay for something they once got for free," Smith says. As to MVPD's arguments that broadcaster retransmission fees are consumer-unfriendly, Smith says those MVPD's "have no plans to pass along any savings to consumers, reduce equipment fees or make bills comprehensible." NAB wants the FCC to resist calls to intervene in the retransmission marketplace, including via the current proceeding.