What's the Cost of Not Having a Retransmission Agreement? $2.25 Million

[Commentary] We now know what the per-subscriber fee for cable systems lacking retransmission agreements with local broadcast stations is, and it isn't "free."

Section 76.64 of the Federal Communications Commission’s rules requires cable systems to have a written retransmission agreement in place before retransmitting the signal of a station that elected retransmission consent status. Because the law is clear on this point, there have been few cases where the FCC has had to address complaints of illegal retransmission. In the first of these cases, the FCC found the cable system violated its obligation to negotiate in good faith with the broadcaster and ordered retransmission to cease until an agreement was in place. Two later cases for a pair of 34-day violations against one cable system operator resulted in base fine calculations of $255,000 each, but the FCC reduced the fines to $15,000 each based upon the cable system operator's inability to pay.

Now the FCC upped the ante, proposing a fine of $2.25 million for TV Max and related parties for retransmitting six local TV stations to 245 multiple dwelling unit buildings in Houston without a retransmission agreement.