they include time warner, mr. britt was the first to see the power of the arts. directv, chase, you launched our service. even comcast cable is rolling us out. the detrimental effect threatens the existence of independent networks like ovation. i'm here supporting the reform to ensure that consumers have access to a diversity of voices in television. senator kerry in a recent editorial you quite apply pointed out that the old rules are outdated and to continue with the status quo is bad for consumers, competition, and democratic participation. as an independent programmers trying to remain competitive, your words definitely ring true. it structure restricts our ability to grow, maintain the subscribers fees, and reinvest those fees into local and national arts programming for an under served consumers. retransmission has enabled the largest broadcast company to bundle an excess of channels and taking up bandwidth and fees that would otherwise be able in the free market system. i grasp the meaning of being between a rock and a hard place. the predicament that ovat

mr. britt was the first. direct tv, when you were returning direct, you launched our service. dish charter communications and even today, comecast cable. mr. chairman, the detrimental affect of this concept threatens the very exist enof independent networks like ovation. i am here supporting reform of these regulations to ensure consumers have access to a diversity of voices in television. senator, kerry -- senator kerry, you pointed out that the old rules are outdated and to continue what the status quo is bad for consumers, competition, and democratic participation. as an independent programmer trying to remain competitive, your words ring true. this regulatory structure restricts our ability to grow our distribution, maintain fair subscriber fee to the networks #, and reinvest those fees into programming for an underserving consumer. retransmission enabled primarily the largest broadcast companies to bundle channels, easing up band bandwidth and taking up their fair share in fees that would otherwise be available in a free market system. i fully grasp the meaning of being be

mr. britt was the first. direct tv, when you were returning direct, you launched our service. sh charter communications and even today, comecast cable. mr. chairman, the detrimental affect of this concept threatens the very exist enof independent networks like ovation. i am here supporting reform of these regulations to ensure consumers have access to a diversity of voices in television. senator, kerry -- senator kerry, you pointed out that the old rules are outdated and to continue what the status quo is bad for consumers, competition, and democratic participation. as an independent programmer trying to remain competitive, your words ring true. this regulatory structure restricts our ability to grow our distribution, maintain fair subscriber fee to the networks #, and reinvest those fees into programming for an underserving consumer. retransmission enabled primarily the largest broadcast companies to bundle channels, easing up band bandwidth and taking up their fair share in fees that would otherwise be available in a free market system. i fully grasp the meaning of being betw

excluded by eight people including some that were wearing d. e a jackets he was wearing himself mr britt was wearing a bulletproof vest ballistic missile ballistic helmet and so obviously this is a man that was surrounded by a high level of security and we can only. anticipate that once he is in new york and it is confirmed that he's in new york he will be held under strict security measures now we can't have a mention of course of the timing of this is unfortunate or i guess perhaps coincidental depending on who you ask you know the u.s. and russia are experiencing a reset of relations of sort just coming up this weekend both president obama and president of aides of are meant to be at the nato summit in lisbon portugal and well this like i said is not good news for that relationship but also what have the officials been saying from both sides. you know obviously it's doesn't help the good relations that have been formed between the u.s. and russia but you know many believe that there is no such thing as coincidences in politics. russian russian officials are obviously reacting to this

. >> mr. britt? >> yes, we think they both have the authority and the obligation to oversee and be involved as appropriate but they have chosen not to exercise that. >> thank you very much. i appreciate all your time. >> thank you, senator klobuchar. let's try to sort of wrap up here a little bit on these thoughts. mr. speaker, let me ask a couple more questions if i can before we wrap up. broadcasters argued in the amount of profit margin that you guys make, you are more than able to deal to pay them the cost of the retransmission consent fee without passing them on to consumers, and they've argued further that it's fair sharing if you will of the profits that you make off of their content so you ought to be able to pass that on. what do you say to that? >> i would say that the company is in front of you are all very profitable including news corporation and disney who's not here, so the issue we are raising is not about the relative profitability of different companies. we are really raising an iss

. >> mr. britt, you want to comment on that how you think the compensation what would be fair? >> yes i think we're talking about apples and oranges and peaches. they were created an uncertain environment which was around free over the air broadcast. they are for each station and we don't really talk about a station as we talk about networks. they are exclusive so there's only one fox station on each market, completely different market cable networks were invented in the world they had to sell to the different distributors the british and no privileges, they conveyed copyright with the network. we support lippitt for copyright's for the broadcast networks so it's a very complicated question. one thing left out of all of this is we are talking as though the broadcast industry is a monolithic thing. most that own networks and the relationship between the stations and the networks have changed dramatically since 1992 and i'm not in this business but my understanding is at that point the networks used to pay the stations and now they don't and in fact the networks are asking the st