Trade Law Daily is a service of Warren Communications News.

CBS CEO Moonves Lobbying FCC Against Totality of Circumstances Test Changes

Multichannel video programming distributors' complaining about retransmission consent matters doesn't reflect an unbalanced marketplace, merely "that they are finally feeling the pain that competition can bring," CBS CEO Leslie Moonves and other top executives told FCC Commissioner Tom Wheeler and…

Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article

Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.

General Counsel Jonathan Sallet, according to a CBS ex parte filing posted Thursday in docket 15-216. At the meeting, CBS said Moonves urged the FCC to end its consideration of changes to the totality of circumstances test of good faith negotiating, saying MVPDs will use the open proceedings as an excuse not to negotiate in good faith with broadcasters "in the hopes that the government will rescue them from an experience that is new to them: The rough and tumble of the marketplace." The only leverage broadcasters have is "desirable, high quality content," CBS said, saying broadcasters "should not be penalized or handicapped because they invest billions of dollars in creating and acquiring programming that MVPDs desire." Meanwhile, given broadcast and over-the-top distribution platforms, it said, "the content is never 'blacked out' completely." According to CBS, Moonves said the totality of circumstances proposals -- along with the FCC proposal regarding the network nonduplication and syndicated exclusivity rules -- will result in "precious agency resources [spent] in oversight and enforcement of negotiations that are best left to the marketplace."