Hearing on legislation governing retransmission of broadcast Television Content by satellite tv companies. Representatives from the National Association of broadcasters, at t, the cable industry, and the Public Interest group testified at this hearing held by house energy and subcommittee on communications. There we go. Will now come to order. The chair recognizes himself for five minutes. Good morning, id like to welcome everyone to the subcommittees first hearing for stellar and evolving marketplace. Id like to thank our witnesses for appearing before us to address these important issues. Five years ago passed the act, extended authorization for Satellite Television companies to provide broadcast content to unserved households. According to satellite tv industry, this provision enables roughly 870,000 customers in mostly rural to receive broadcast television signals. These customers fall into a few categories, first is households that cant receive content using an antenna. Second is
Is a tax imposed by the virtue of this protection, the antitrust exemption that allows the league to threaten the blackout. I will split out point out that they Sports Coalition pointed to allegations that were provided to us from an executive that wishes to remain anonymous that the reason why those three playoff games that you alluded to in your opening statement, green bay, indianapolis, the reason why those threaten blackouts didnt occur, it was alleged was because the nfl pressured broadcast networks to buy up unsold tickets in order to avoid the blackout. Now lets assume for a moment that allegation is true. Let me get this straight. The United States government gets the nfl in antitrust exemption. The nfl takes that antitrust exemption and exerts power on other third parties to get them to buy something from the nfl at full value. Now, the nfl had every opportunity to turn around to the Sports Coalition and say that is blatantly false how dare you make such allegations. Instead
And then the north korean government dont tell [inaudible] the second cause, the poor environmental about media industry, as some have already said, too much competition between Media Companies and between people exist. And too little too much space on newspaper and too much time on tv news. So we have to write reports, whatever, everyday, every night. So sometimes well have enough time to verify the facts and check. Its reality. And i think some reporters have the first belief that North Koreans do not argue about their article. And then the last code i have, ideological [inaudible] i want to bring [inaudible] you know, everybody have their own view of north korea. So do the journalists. Some are conservatives and some are [inaudible] so usually the conservatives want to blame north korea, right . And the progressives want to verify. So when conservative journalists meet, conservative also received conservative pundit, or and vice versa. Progressive meet progresses. I think it is like
Them gavel to gavel, but my perception, and i think the perception of many were those very concerns in those cases. But i think whats far more important is to survey the people that were involved in a particular case, the lawyers, the witnesses, i mean, the things that our pilot is going to do. Their perceptions, i think, are much more compelling and persuasive than the perceptions of somebody who is watching it on tv, who doesnt know all the facts, who doesnt know what that witness testified to in a deposition and whether theyre shading their testimony now when theyre in front of television camera. We may not. Viewers may not know that but the parties involved on whose bhaf your speaking, the concerns of the parties involved, certainly we would have these are issues that would have come up time and time again, wouldnt they . As we televise trials all over the country, many of them high profile . All i can tell you, sir, is i think its important to survey people. Im not aware in the st
We think over the long term it has served and its in the business judgment of the league that has served it, but as that shows, clubs take extraordinary examples to avoid them. Im going to continue this conversation with you and the other witnesses but now turn to senator klobuchar. Thank you. Thank you very mu. Thank you to all of the witnesses. I thought id start with you, mr. Waldron. The blackout rule was put in place in 1961, is that right . The Sports Broadcasting act was adopted in 1961. The fccs rule was put in place in 1975. Most of the money made by sports tickets came from ticket sales, but today nfl games are consistently among the most Popular Television programs, certainly in my state where were proud of the vikings and with that comes a significant increase in revenue. Cost of tickets has significantly increased. Its a big expense. Do sports teams need blackout rules the same way they did half a century ago . If not, why do we have the same rule . No question that those