Senate Commerce subcommittee chairman Mark Pryor opened his
hearing on the Future of Video Tuesday saying Congress wants to update laws so
that people can get the content they want and that it’s affordable. The conversation quickly turned to a la
carte channel pricing and sports team broadcasting and the frustration of fans
and satellite and cable subscribers when they can’t watch their hometown team.
Senator John McCain, who has introduced legislation to let consumers
buy individual channels, visited
the hearing room to advocate for his bill and for ending transmission blackouts
for teams that play in publicly funded stadiums. Another senator asked whether
there is a competition problem that was interfering with a company being able
to offer consumers more of what they want.
Stanton Dodge, executive vice president and general counsel
for DISH networks told the committee one way to bring more competition would be to allow
companies like his to import a distant signal so that broadcasters have an
incentive to offer a more competitive retransmission rate.
DISH is a member of CCIA and Dodge added:
“We believe Congress should safeguard viewer choice in the
increasingly frequent and highly unfortunate phenomenon of retransmission
consent disputes and ―blackouts. When a local broadcast station
is pulled from a consumer due to a retransmission dispute, video distributors
should be able to temporarily provide another market’s network signal and
prevent the total disenfranchisement of the consumer. The reauthorization of
the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act of 2010 (―STELA) gives
Congress the opportunity to enact this important reform.”
Congress has to redo STELA by 2014. Dodge added that DISH
also supports DMA reform so that customers can watch their local teams.
