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April 22, 2015
The Honorable Tom Wheeler
Chairman
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street, SW
Washington, DC 20554
Dear Chairman Wheeler:
Many small video distributors have long requested that the Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) rectify an oversight in the implementation of the program access rules that
~-g:f:fect-ive1y-<:iooiesthem the full legal rights and protections that.Congress intended.
These video providers are some of the more than 900 small and medium-sized
multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) across the country that rely upon a
single buying group, the National Cable Television Cooperative (NCTC), to negotiate the bulk of
their programming agreements. In 1992, Democrats and Republicans of Congress united in
passing legislation specifying that MVPDs and their buying groups, without qualification, were
to be protected from discriminatory treatment by cable-affiliated programmers under the
program access rules. However, the FCC has defined the term "buying group" in an overly-
restrictive manner so that today it excludes NCTC. As a result, the many hundreds of MVPDs
that currently relyexclusively on the NCTC to negotiate their programming agreements are
effectively without the program accessprotections.that.Congress intended.
For over two years the FCC has h~d pending a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in
which it tentatively concluded the definition of a buying group should be updated, as these small
video distributors have requested and should expect based upon law enacted by Congress. This
Further Notice, which garnered the bipartisan support of three of the five sitting Commissioners,
states:
[I]t appears that our existing definition of "buying group" set forth
in Section 76.1OOO(c)( 1) does not reflect accepted industry
practices and thus may have the unintended effect of barring some
buying groups from availing themselves of the protections of the
nondiscrimination provision of the program access rules, in
contravention of Congress' s express intent in:enacting Section
628(c)(2)(B) of the Act.' .We tentatively conclude that we should
revise Section 76.1,OOO(c)(1.) to require, as an alternative to the
current liability options, that the buying group agree to assume
liability to .forward all payments due and received from its
members for payment under a,master 'agreement to the appropriate
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Since the Commission reached that tentative conclusion in 2012, no final decision has
been rendered on this and related issues teed up in the rulemaking, leaving smaller pay TV
providers and, by extension, their customers at risk of being treated in an unfair manner by cable-
affiliated programmers. Based upon what we have heard and read, we urge the Commission to
take action quickly and update its definition for a buying group and consider the other issues
raised to ensure that buying groups as they operate in the marketplace today, like the NCTC, can
use these rules to protect its members from discriminatory practices, as Congress intended. We
also ask that you keep us apprised of your actions on this matter.
Thank you for your time and consideration of this request. Please do not hesitate to
contact Rachel Schwegman with Rep. Latta's office at Rache1.Schwegman@mai1.house.gov or
(202) 225-6405, or Philip Murphy with Rep. Doyle's office at Philip.Murphy@mail.house.gov
or at (202) 225-2135) with any questions or concerns.
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Robert""''''~ __ ••••.~
Member of Congress
Ben Ray Lujan
Member of CongressMember of Congress