Third Party Should Oversee Nexstar Retrans Agreements Post-Deal, Say ACA, Dish, ITTA
The FCC should impose conditions on Nexstar's buy of Media General, including third-party oversight of retransmission consent agreements, said representatives of Dish Network, ITTA and the American Cable Association in a meeting Friday with Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake, Video…
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Division Chief Barbara Kreisman and bureau staff, according to an ex parte filing in docket 16-57. The deal will “increase Nexstar’s ability to harm consumers by raising retransmission consent fees and causing blackouts in the conduct of retransmission consent negotiations,” and will trigger clauses in existing retrans agreements with Media General stations that will raise their rates to Nexstar's levels, ITTA, Dish and ACA said. “The triggering of after-acquired station clauses is, by definition, a merger-specific harm as, but for the merger, the clauses would not be operative.” To keep Nexstar from abusing the new scale granted by the transaction, the FCC should impose conditions similar to AT&T/DirecTV, the entities said. The agency should use an independent third party to oversee retrans agreements and merger conditions, and include a periodic reporting requirement, the filing said. “The goal of this compliance program is to relieve [multichannel video programming distributors] of some of the burden of policing Nexstar’s behavior postmerger.”