U.S. HISPANIC
Matt Polka of ACA: We have to break the channel bundles
Maribel Ramos-Weiner| 10 de agosto de 2010
Polka: se corre el riesgo de destruir la competencia efectiva en el mercado de distribución de TV paga
(Maribel Ramos-Weiner). In order for Hispanic independent channels to be added more frequently to the grids of the small- and mid-size systems of the American Cable Association (ACA), two things need to happen: the channel bundling policies of large media groups need to be eliminated in order to free up some grid space, and also, the retransmission rates that TV networks are charging these systems need to be reduced.Matt Polka, President and CEO of American Cable Association, spoke to PRODU about this issue. Our members serve quite few areas around the country where there is a very vibrant market for Hispanics and our members would like to provide more in the way of Hispanic programming. There are services out there, independent services that provide programming to the Hispanic market that we would like to carry but in some ways we cant, and the reasons for that is the behavior and the tactics of the big media companies that tie and bundle their programming and basically prohibit or make very difficult for independent programmers, often times Hispanic programmers, to be carried, said Polka.He cited the case of SíTV, one of the Hispanic channels affiliated to NCTC, which they would like to distribute more widely in their territories.Our hope is that the FCC will launch a rule-making soon on retransmission consent so there will be a public debate on whether or not retransmission consent should be reformed so our members would have a greater ability to launch other independent programmers like Hispanic programmers, added Polka.{To watch video interview with Matt Polka from ACA click here;http://www.produ.com/produtv/popup.html?Noti=4461}
