No broadcasting stations were involved in this particular program carriage dispute, but the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) is hailing the agreement by Cablevision’s Rainbow Media and AT&T U-Verse as further proof that the current retrans system works.
“Once again, the retransmission consent marketplace worked, as demonstrated by AT&T’s successful negotiations with Cablevision’s Rainbow Media cable networks. This is just one of the thousands and thousands of retrans agreements successfully negotiated with no disruption in service. The fact is that an American home is 10 times more likely to lose access to TV programming because of poor pay-TV customer service than because of a retrans dispute,” said NAB Executive Vice President of Communications Dennis Wharton.
RBR-TVBR observation: OK, the retransmission consent law didn’t actually come into play, since these were cable networks, not broadcast stations. But we agree that the concept is the same – the marketplace produced an agreement, just as the marketplace has produced agreements wherever cable systems and broadcasters had faced the expiration of a carriage agreement.
