Advocacy groups for broadcasters and cable sparred this...

Advocacy groups for broadcasters and cable sparred this week over cable buying groups, which broadcast organization TVFreedom.org called “a dubious pay-TV business practice,” in a release calling for congressional and regulatory investigations of the National Cable Television Cooperative. “We believe America’s consumers deserve to know whether buying groups, like NCTC, provide any savings at all to consumers on their monthly cable bills,” said a TVFreedom spokesman in the release. TVFreedom took particular aim at the American Cable Association, which has been lobbying the FCC for more program carriage protection for buying groups like NCTC. In responses from ACA and the American Television Alliance (ATVA), the cable industry said TVFreedom’s focus on joint negotiation with programmers through buying groups was a reaction to likely new FCC restrictions on broadcasters jointly negotiating retransmission consent contracts. Calling TVFreedom a “proxy” for the NAB, ACA called the allegations against NCTC “a desperate and pathetic effort to deflect attention away from the fact that TV stations have been caught red-handed by the Federal Communications Commission in colluding in the negotiation of retransmission consent.” NAB is a member of TVFreedom, along with many other broadcaster groups. ATVA also linked the attack on NCTC to NAB. “This baseless attack is further proof the NAB is so desperate to distract from the collusion crackdown it’s facing that it’s willing to make up a phony story,” said ATVA. In an emailed response, a TVFreedom spokesman said the groups were trying to cloud the issue. “We are asking the NCTC and ACA pay-TV members to simply answer the questions we are asking for the benefit of consumers’ awareness,” said the spokesman. In its own emailed release, NTCA said broadcasters were trying to “defect focus” and “impede” rule updates. Video buying groups are “indispensable” to small carriers that provide video services in rural areas, NTCA said. “Without video buying groups that often provide the only hope of managing content costs, small companies could not bring video to remote areas where over-the-air signals are often difficult or impossible to receive,” NTCA said.