• B&C, Friday, September 17, 2010 12:27 AM

Representatives of independent cable nets are asking the FCC to launch a proceeding revamping the retransmission consent process. American Television Alliance members, including Outdoor Channel, Starz, Africa Channel, Retirement Living TV and the Gospel Movie Channel, are also calling on Congress to urge the FCC to step in and lower the payments to non-broadcast affiliated networks.

The independent channels say that making independent networks fund their broadcast network competitors by bearing the retrans costs would be a "direct assault" on independent programmers and a threat to the public interest benefit of a diversity of voices. They argue that broadcasters already have "special government-granted privileges," like must-carry and basic tier guarantees, that independent cable programmers don't. Plus, they can bundle their co-owned channels into carriage deals, citing the Disney/Time Warner Cable agreement that included carriage of Disney Junior and ESPN 3D, among others.

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