ATVA: New York’s Television Subscriber Choice Act Helps Consumers by Reigning in Broadcasters’ Bad Practices

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The American Television Alliance (ATVA) issued a statement in response to the introduction of the “Television Subscriber Choice Act” (S4653/A5870) in the New York Legislature by Senator Leroy Comrie (Senate District 14) and Assemblywoman Michaelle Solages (Assembly District 22).

“As the number of Big Broadcaster TV blackouts continues to rise – driven by broadcaster demands imposing ever-higher fees on customers – more and more consumers are left in the dark, losing access to key news programming and entertainment content,” said ATVA spokesman Hunter Wilson. “We applaud Senator Comrie, Assemblywoman Solages and the New York Legislature for standing up for consumers. This legislation is an important step to reign in broadcasters from forcing consumers into expensive programming bundles with unnecessary costs. Consumers deserve more flexibility and control over the TV content they want to watch and pay for.”

The Television Subscriber Choice Act will help regulate TV carriage rights agreements by limiting restrictive contract conditions that often lead to programming blackouts, providing consumers with more choice and flexibility when it comes to their TV content. The legislation also seeks to reduce the frequency of programming disputes by eliminating common restrictive practices, including minimum penetration requirements, mandated content package tiering and more.

Currently, broadcasters often dictate how their content is packaged by distributors and typically require nearly all subscribers to have access to and pay for certain channels – whether they want them or not. These practices drive up costs and limit distributors’ ability to curate packages that best align with consumer interests.

The legislation also addresses channel bundling, a common practice broadcasters use to require distributors to take multiple channels in order to obtain a single, often popular, channel – all in the same agreement. The Television Subscriber Choice Act would combat this by requiring programmers to offer distributors the option to contract each channel individually, promoting greater flexibility and fairness.

Broadcasters have levied more than 1,900 TV blackouts in the last decade and increased retransmission consent fees by an overwhelming 1,529 percent since 2010 – including 100 TV blackouts in New York alone. American consumers continue to pay the price for these outdated regulations, which allow broadcasters to continuously weaponize TV blackouts, deliberately targeting live sports and other must-see TV.

ATVA stands ready to work with the FCC, Congress and state legislatures to modernize dated regulations that result in higher prices and less competition for consumers.

To learn more about outdated broadcast regulations and their impact on the American consumer, visit https://americantelevisionalliance.org/about-the-issue/.