Retransmission Negotiation Support Article and FAQs

Article Date: 8/31/21

Hawaiian Telcom is currently in Broadcast Retransmission Consent negotiations with Nexstar Broadcasting Group, the corporate owner of TV station KHON (FOX), KHII, The CW, Rewind TV, GRIT and News Nation. The current contract is set to expire on Friday, 06/30/2023 at 11:59am HST.
 

Retransmission Consent Overview & FAQs

WHAT ARE RETRANSMISSION CONSENT FEES? 

Retransmission (or retrans) consent fees are the payments that Pay TV providers, like Hawaiian Telcom, make to broadcasters to carry their signals. If we do not agree on these fees, the national broadcast networks - ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox - can potentially pull their signals, resulting in channel blackouts for the customer. 
 
Consumers should be aware that: 

• The rules governing retrans fees are part of the 1992 Cable Act. 

• These rules were written at a time when most of us had only one choice for pay TV service and the Internet was still in its infancy.

• Today, we have a variety of ways to watch programming, but our video rules are still based on the old model of only one Pay TV provider. 

WHO ARE THE BIG BROADCASTERS? 

The “Big 4” networks are ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX. They provide programming, such as morning and nightly national news shows, some daytime dramas, prime time programming, and late night shows. The programming is then shown by their owned and operated (“O&O”) stations or their local affiliated stations, like Allen Media Broadcasting (KITV) and Gray (KHNL) here in Hawaii. 
 

HOW DOES RETRANS LEAD TO BLACKOUTS? 

Hawaiian Telcom wants to give our customers the programming they love. To do so, we either have to pay the increased fees networks demand for retransmission (which can adversely affect customers’ bills) or risk a network blackout. 

WHY SHOULDN’T CUSTOMERS SWITCH TO ANOTHER PAY TV PROVIDER? 

Any provider a customer switches to will face the same kind of blackout threats. In fact, the American Television Alliance reports that in the last five years, 80% of TV markets in the U.S. have experienced at least one local broadcast blackout. In Hawaii, customers of Oceanic Time Warner, Dish Network and DirecTV have experienced three (3) major dispute impasses during the past several years resulting in blackouts totaling nearly 500 days.