TVFreedom Urges Pay-TV Industry to Take Holistic Look at Video Market

TVFreedom issued another blog post Monday tearing into the pay-TV industry for reaping what it called too much profit and not helping consumers. “Using every means at their disposal, [pay-TV lobbyists] continue pressuring Washington lawmakers for new laws and policies that would separate out local broadcast TV stations from existing cable package offerings and, instead, would require consumers to purchase these popular local TV channels on an 'a la carte' basis,” TVFreedom's spokesman wrote of the Senate’s Local Choice proposal. “This is one component of a grand strategy to use government intervention to fundamentally alter the nation's existing video market in order to provide the pay-TV industry with an irreversible competitive advantage over the broadcast television industry for local advertising dollars.” TVFreedom is a coalition of broadcasters, including NAB. “Blinded by the potential financial windfall they'll reap as a result of broadcast-TV-only 'a la carte' through increased local advertising dollars, the pay-TV cabal is now engaged in a full-throttled effort to hide this truth from their subscribers,” the spokesman said. The pay-TV industry should “offer subscribers a lease-to-purchase option for DVRs and set-top boxes as part of service contract renewals” and take “proactive measures to overhaul their truth-in-billing practices for the benefit of customers,” the TVFreedom spokesman said. TVFreedom has been engaged in a lobbying battle with the American Television Alliance, a coalition of pay-TV industry stakeholders, throughout the past year. The American Television Alliance has defended Local Choice as necessary and criticized broadcaster greed (see 1408270052).