PITTSBURGH, February 12, 2008 – In comments filed with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today, the American Cable Association (ACA) urged the Commission to address blatant price and program-tying discrimination from the broadcast and programming conglomerates against consumers and smaller, independent cable operators by making moderate changes to the FCC’s retransmission consent and program access regulations.

ACA’s comments were submitted to the FCC as part of the Commission’s current review of retransmission consent and programming tying arrangements. ACA represents 1,100 independent cable operators serving more than 7 million consumers in smaller and rural markets throughout all 50 states.