The battle between cable operator Mediacom and local TV broadcasters has reached epic levels of rhetoric, with the National Association of Broadcasters issuing a fiery filing with the FCC calling Mediacom's requests "silly" and its customer service "dismal."
"Mediacom, a company that appears to make special effort to provide dismal customer service, has come to the Commission, hat in hand, asking yet again for the government's help to grow its already hefty bottom line. For a host of reasons, including the fact that its petition is based on a wholly false premise, the Commission should swiftly dismiss its plea," NAB wrote in a new filing with the FCC.
For its part, Mediacom has argued that the FCC should step in to its retransmission negotiations with TV broadcasters. "The broadcast industry's commitment to free over-the-air service is dying, and television viewers all over the country have become subject to retransmission consent-fueled increases in the price of pay-TV service or service disruptions that result from retransmission consent impasses," Mediacom wrote in a recent FCC filing. "These price increases and service disruptions hit hardest those viewers retransmission consent was supposed to protect -- those that cannot receive local broadcast signals without MVPD service."
Mediacom has recently suffered through a number of station blackouts due to retrans negotiations with Media General and Granite Broadcasting.