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Mediacom president blasts FCC on retransmission consent


T.L. Hughes

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Rocco Comisso, the president/CEO of Mediacom has criticized the Federal Communications Commission for not doing anything to prevent cable programming costs from increasing, writing in a letter to Julius Genachowski, chairman of the FCC:

"I am deeply disappointed with the Commission's lack of interest in keeping multichannel television services affordable. Content owners have been unwilling to exercise the slightest measure of self-restraint, and are emboldened by the Commission's unwillingness to even try to impose some limits or speak out against programmers' practices."

 

Commisso's main issue is with having to pay broadcast groups more in retransmission consent fees to transmit their local television stations on local systems; such issues led to Mediacom dropping LIN TV stations in Mediacom markets on Thursday (which in parts of the Terre Haute market came as a double whammy as Mediacom subscribers in the company's Terre Haute system area lost access to both CBS and Fox as Nexstar Broadcasting's Fox affiliate WFXW became ABC affiliate WAWV Thursday and LIN's CBS affiliate there, WTHI-TV began carrying Fox and MyNetworkTV on a digital subchannel). The jawdropping part of this story that will make you question if hell has finally frozen over, is that Comisso is actually advocating the use of a-la-carte packaging, allowing customers to choose which channels they want (something others in the cable industry have been against).

 

Full story: http://latimesblogs....lasts-fcc-.html

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