WASHINGTON, D.C.—The U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation held a Communications, Technology, and the Internet Subcommittee hearing today on television viewers, retransmission consent, and the public’s interest.

**CLICK HERE TO VIEW CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER’S OPENING REMARKS.**

Witness List:

Mr. Glenn Britt, Chairman, President and CEO, Time Warner Cable 

Mr. Joe Uva, CEO and President, Univision Communications Inc.

Mr. Tom Rutledge, COO, Cablevision Systems Corp.

Mr. Chase Carey, Deputy Chairman, President and COO, News Corporation

Mr. Charles Segars, CEO, Ovation

Key Quotations from Today’s Hearing:

“If you fail to fix this situation, we will fix it for you. But when we do, we will seek to do more than referee your corporate disputes. Because more than just retransmission consent ails our television markets. We need new catalysts for quality news and entertainment programming. We need slimmed down channel packages that better respect what we really want to watch. And we need to find ways to provide greater value for television viewers at a lower cost.”

Chairman John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV

“I am concerned that without a better, more transparent process for dealing with impasses in negotiations and adequate FCC oversight, more fights and disruptions of service will come, prices for consumers will rise, and independent programming will get crowded out.”

Senator John F. Kerry, Chairman, U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet

“Retransmission consent negotiations occur in a vastly different environment today. The pay TV industry has become robustly competitive, while local broadcasters have retained their government-granted monopolies and other benefits that now distort carriage negotiations. Under these rules, pay TV providers are limited to dealing with only one broadcast supplier in a local market. This has allowed broadcasters to play multiple distributors off of each other and has encouraged broadcasters to take more extreme, disruptive positions rather than to seek compromise. Consumers, caught in the middle, are the ones getting hurt.”

Mr. Glenn Britt, Chairman, President and CEO, Time Warner Cable

“I certainly understand concerns by elected officials that their constituents not have to face even the temporary loss of a favorite station’s signal on cable or satellite. But we are very concerned that government mandates – such as requiring Univision to keep providing our programming to a distributor even where we failed to reach a deal – would distort the market by removing our distributors’ primary incentive to reach agreement.”

Mr. Joe Uva, CEO and President, Univision Communications Inc.

“Retransmission consent negotiations do not take place in a free market but rather under an umbrella of statutory provisions and FCC rules that heavily favor the broadcaster over the cable operator or multi-channel video programming distributor (MVPD). It is a scheme based on a perception of the video marketplace that is 20 years out of date. As a result, consumers are increasingly faced with broadcast blackouts, threats of blackouts, and spiraling fee increases. This is because of outdated laws and regulations that literally put the government at the negotiating table. These laws reward brinksmanship and blackout threats with higher fees, undermining the very public interest that the law is intended to support.”

Mr. Tom Rutledge, COO, Cablevision Systems Corp.

“The retransmission consent law is experiencing growing pains because broadcasters like Fox are, for the first time, seeking cash compensation for their content. But the good news is, the actual interruptions in service are few and far between, and this period of adjustment will be short-lived once distributors accept that they have to pay a fair price for the right to re-sell broadcast content just like they have to pay for all the other content they provide to their customers. Keeping the focus on consumer education and protection is the most effective and efficient way to help consumers weather this temporary and short-lived unrest.”

Mr. Chase Carey, Deputy Chairman, President and COO, News Corporation

“This is a call for a level playing field. If large broadcasters are allowed to use the airwaves owned by all Americans to extract payment for historically free TV service, then let’s not allow them to bundle all their other services with it. If an alternative dispute resolution process for distributors and programmers is to be considered, do not limit it only to those programmers who are trading on retransmission consent, but open that dispute process to all programmers, including the few remaining independent ones.”

Mr. Charles Segars, CEO, Ovation

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