Charter's footprint after the proposed merger. (credit: Charter)
TV broadcasters today asked the Federal Communications Commission to halt its review of Charter's proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable, saying the merged company would put local broadcasters at a disadvantage in multiple types of business negotiations.
The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) filed a petition saying the FCC should not approve the merger unless it also changes broadcast ownership rules that limit the number of radio and TV stations a single entity can own. Because the broadcast ownership rules limit mergers, NAB argues that broadcasters have far less negotiating power than big cable companies, which will only get bigger if the FCC allows the latest cable merger to proceed.
The NAB said the greater imbalance would harm broadcasters in retransmission consent negotiations, in which cable operators pay broadcast stations for the right to air their channels.
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