Speaking at NCTC’s 2019 Winter Educational Conference, American Cable Association Sr. Vice President, Ross Lieberman, suggests an idea for retransmission consent reform that may get some traction in the halls of Congress. The essence of the idea is that broadcasters would charge consumers for programming, instead of using the MVPD (Multichannel Video Program Distributors, e.g., cable company) as their proxies. In this scenario, the MVPD would still bill the customer but would transfer 100% of the money directly to the broadcasters.

It will be interesting to see how much weight arguments that broadcasters would have made in the 90s will have in today’s broadband-centric world. Lieberman also provides a high-level overview of the potential impact of C-Band spectrum auctions for so-called 5G. These topics and more will be discussed at the ACA Summit, coming up in a little more than a week in Washington D.C.

WEC2019 coverage is brought to you by NCTC and ViodiTV.