Cable Operator Fined $2.25 Million for Retransmission Consent Violations

The FCC has fined a Houston, Texas-based cable operator $2.25 Million because it retransmitted broadcast television signals without first obtaining the consent of the stations whose signals it was using. The FCC had previously warned the cable operator and also conducted a full investigation of the cable operator after receiving complaints from four TV stations in the market.

The cable operator claimed that it was a “master antenna television” (MATV) delivering signals to building residents through a “master antenna” but the FCC instead found that it was receiving TV signals at an off-site cable headend. It also found the violations to be “very serious” because the unauthorized carriage had continued over a long period of time, even after an FCC warning.

The FCC has been paying more attention to unauthorized retransmission onsent issues in the past few years, issuing similar fines against other cable operators as recently as 2012.