Yesterday morning as I surfed my daily allotment of blogs, I notice one recurring advertisement. It was for SaveABC7. Clicking on the ad, I found that Cablevision was entering into a new fracas similar to what happened with Food Channel and HGTV earlier this year. That three week dispute with Scripps was over the amount that Cablevision must pay per subscriber to carry the channels.

This morning channel 7 on Cablevision had a message from the cable company saying that ABC7 was off the air during the current dispute. It appears as if a similar dispute is now being fought out over what Cablevision must pay to carry ABC7.

The media landscape continues to evolve as people argue about creation and distribution of video content. Yet this is not a discussion that the average subscriber needs to be involved in. In fact, using subscribers as pawns in such discussions seems, at best, unfair.

To address this, the Energy and Technology Committee of the Connecticut General Assembly is considering bill HR 5469 – An Act Concerning Cable Subscriber Rights. The proposed bill has the following language:

No certified competitive video service provider, holder of a certificate of cable franchise authority or community antenna television company, as defined in section 16-1 of the general statutes, shall withdraw programming from its channel lineup during the contract renewal process for such programming. A violation of this section shall be deemed an unfair trade practice in violation of subsection (a) of section 42-110b of the general statutes.

If you are tired of being used as a pawn in a high dollar game of who video content is distributed contact your State Legislator to discuss the bill.