New Rules Sought on TV Retransmission

In a petition to the Federal Communications Commission and in a letter to Congressional leaders, the providers including heavyweights like DirecTV, Time Warner Cable and Verizon, as well as smaller providers and nonprofit groups said the current rules were broken and in need of repair.

The regulations date to 1992 and ensured that cable providers would carry over-the-air stations. Now that more of those stations are asking to be paid by the providers, the same way that cable-only channels are paid, the cable and satellite industries believe that the rules give the stations far too much leverage.

During contentious negotiations, stations can withhold their signals from the providers, as the ABC station did for nearly 21 hours on Sunday until a tentative deal was struck between Cablevision and ABC's parent, the Walt Disney Company.