Exclusivity Rules Arguments Ignore Congress's Wishes, NAB's Kaplan Says

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake are apparently alone in thinking that eliminating the syndicated exclusivity rules is a necessary or even a good step for the agency to take, Rick Kaplan, NAB executive vice president-legal and regulatory affairs, said in a blog post Wednesday. It responded to a blog post Lake wrote the day before arguing for the end of the syndicated exclusivity and network non-duplication rules (see 1509220024). Kaplan said Lake's blog post was "an attempt to reverse the palpable lack of enthusiasm for the Chairman's plan, and took aim at Lake's arguments against rules Lake called "past their prime." Any argument that retransmission consent rules obviate any need for preserving local exclusivity is off base, as Congress was explicit in the 1992 Cable Act, when it set up retrans rules, that changing or deleting the rules in a way that would allow for carriage of distant stations in the place of local stations carrying the same programming isn't the intent, Kaplan said. "Contrary to Mr. Lake's central claim, Congress was well aware of the importance of the exclusivity rules when it granted retransmission consent rights to broadcasters," Kaplan said. And Congress' preservation of local exclusivity in the 2014 satellite reauthorization law is further evidence of "how hollow Mr. Lake's claim rings," Kaplan said. Neither Lake nor Wheeler is making a case for how eliminating exclusivity rules will benefit consumers or fix some regulatory problem, Kaplan wrote. "Their central premise is simply that the rules are 'old' and 'unnecessary,'" Kaplan said. "It's time to shelve this proposal and move on to more important matters that preserve localism, competition and diversity for the benefit of consumers."