Cable television is rooted in the clear transmission of federally-licensed broadcast TV signals. The acronym CATV meant Community Antenna Television. In the late 1940s, in areas of the country where it was difficult or impossible to watch broadcast TV channels, cable lines were connected to a large antenna, often located on a mountain top, and then to poles in the community below. From there, to individual homes.

The arrangement was mutually beneficial. TV stations picked up viewers they did not already have, and that extended the reach of their advertising, increasing both revenue and ratings for the stations.

Remember, the public airwaves, that part of the electro-magnetic spectrum that includes television signals, are limited. Congress saw fit, when television came along, to mandate that TV stations operate in the “public interest, convenience and necessity.” As we all know, TV stations now operate low-margin businesses making billions of dollars for their media company owners.

Those giant, multibillion dollar companies will argue that local news is their contribution to the community. Local news on a station is a moneymaker. If it were not, local news would consist of 15 minutes of a talking head reading stories at 7 a.m. on Sunday mornings.

When cable grew in the 1970s and 80s, it was important to keep local broadcast signals available to those who no longer used “rabbit ears” to receive their local stations. “Must carry,” in that circumstance, makes sense. Cable operators complained that their First Amendment rights were being usurped in having to carry channels that they did not necessarily want. In this case, the public good overruled those objections. In effect, the government was protecting the “broadcast” of local TV stations.

Retransmission consent, where the cable operator is required to pay for the signal of federally-licensed use of the public airwaves, is an abomination. Cable operators must now pay for programming that is free over-the-air with the simple use of an antenna built into or connected to a television.

How did we get to this point? Why hasn’t the cable industry fought harder against this?

Early last year I left the cable TV industry involuntarily. After 35 years of free or deeply discounted cable services, I am now paying full price. One thing I noticed were the large fees for broadcast TV. In my case, $7.50 a month. And now the cable operator has announced that these fees are increasing!

$7.50 a month for broadcast channels that I could tune in without cable? Free, over-the-air publicly licensed stations. Wait! The retransmission consent fees are being used to produce more local news and community programming? Sadly, no. Retransmission fees are pure profit for the multibillion dollar media companies that own the stations.

Related: Murdochs Say Retrans Rates Could Rise 'Aggressively' at New Fox

The broadcast TV model worked just fine for decades without retransmission consent. Even with falling ratings the economics are unchanged. Look at Les Moonves and his $70 million salary. Or Ellen Pompeo’s new $20 million contract. Not to mention the $3.3 billion dollars Fox will be paying out over the next few years for the NFL on Thursday nights. Personally, I only made five figures annually in the TV business, nothing like the eight figures Moonves and Pompeo are pulling down. I may never work in the media industry again as I’m “overqualified” (too old).

Shouldn’t the federal government get all or a large portion of those retransmission-consent fees? That’s certainly worth the cost of a license to operate a station in the public interest, convenience and necessity on the public airwaves so these large companies can continue to profit, right?

Randy Smith is a former cable TV industry professional. Pictured: A Jerrold Electronics CATV tower in Meadsville, Pa., circa 1953; photo courtesy of The Cable Center, Barco Library.

21st Century Fox executive chair Lachlan Murdoch put into words what most pay TV  operators feared in the wake of the programmer’s plans to pare down to select broadcast and cable assets while beefing up on sports rights – when the dust settles distributors can expect retransmission consent fees for its broadcast stations to rise.

Fox agreed in December to sell its film and TV production studios, regional sports networks and FX, FXX and National Geographic cable networks to The Walt Disney Co. for about $66.1 billion, while keeping its broadcast network, TV stations, and cable channels Fox News Channel, Fox Business, FS 1 and FS 2 and the Big Ten Network. More than a month later, the programmer agreed to pay $3.3 billion over five years for rights to Thursday Night Football games.

“We see great potential to increase our retransmission revenue quite aggressively,” Lachlan Murdoch said on a conference call to discuss fiscal second quarter results. “We think that for two reasons, one obviously is the focus and investment in sports with the new NFL Thursday night packages, but also being a more focused company with fewer channels in our bundle [we] will be able to drive our retrans for the stations quite aggressively.”

His brother, CEO James Murdoch, was equally encouraged by the retrans potential of the deal.

“It’s still a growth trajectory in  terms of getting what we think is a fair price, given the strength of the network, the strength of the stations and the size of that audience,” James Murdoch said.

And although the premium paid for Thursday Night Football was high -- nearly 50% -- for content that has suffered declining ratings, Fox believes adding the Thursday night games to its existing Sunday NFL package could grow viewership.

“When you look at the licensing that the NFL has undertaken, with expanding to Thursday night and we’ve talked in the past about what fragmentation can do to the overall audience on each individual day,” he continued. “We think the right answer is to concentrate that audience and to have Fox be the clear leader in NFL broadcasting.”

He added that having the extra night of football will help Fox’s other shows in terms of promotion and will also solidify the network’s position as a sports leader.

“In general, as the scarcity value of large audiences coming together around national events continues to rise, we really want Fox to be the home of that kind of compelling product,” James Murdoch said.

Veteran cable critics Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) have started out the new Congress by pressing Charter and Comcast on fees and promotions.

That came in joint letters to Charter President Thomas Rutledge and Comcast President Brian Roberts dated Dec. 23.

Portman and McCaskill head up the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which held a hearing on cable fees and customer service last year in conjunction with a report it issued at the same time. Both the report and the hearing were rough on MPVDS, who pledged to do better.

In a joint release Tuesday (Jan. 3), McCaskill and Portman said they were pressing Charter and Comcast over what they characterized as "the misleading placement of fees on customers’ bills, and inadequate advertising disclosure for service promotions."

They want more information on both from both companies.

Citing the hearing in the last Congress, they said in letters to the two companies that, as they signaled in the hearing, they thought that using separate line items like the "broadcast TV surcharge" for retrans fees or "Regional Sports Network Fees" charge for the cost of that programming "obscured" the real cost of programming when it was grouped with regulatory fee line items and charges.

"[N]o federal, state or local government levies the Broadcast TV Surcharge or Regional Sports Network Fee, which are charged entirely at the discretion of [Charter/Time Warner or Comcast]," they said.

They also said they had gotten insufficient answers on how and whether they promoted the non-promotional price of service to customers.

They said they want copies of online and paper bills and service orders as well as a briefing on any changes in ad or billing practices prompted by the hearing.

“Charter provides its customers with simple, easy to understand bills that inform customers what they are paying for," the company said in a statement. "In addition, Charter doesn’t charge many additional fees common in the industry such as modem lease fees and early termination fees."

The American Cable Association told the FCC last week that if the agency decides to approve Nexstar's acquisition of Media General, it should not let Nexstar use "after-acquired" clauses to raise the retrans fees of the Media General stations it is acquiring.

Nexstar has been telling MVPDs it expects to get a waiver from the FCC so that the commission could act on the merger, perhaps as early as this week, according to a source speaking on background.

The deal proposal was not filed until after the deadline for FCC action on stations in the broadcast incentive auction. The commission had said it would not approve any deals for the duration of the auction if they involved stations potentially in the auction, which the Nexstar-Media General deal does.

Nexstar and Media General sought a waiver of that prohibition.

If that is the case, the ACA told a top advisor to FCC chairman Tom Wheeler last week, and the deal is approved, the FCC must limit the triggering of the clauses, which it said would force "dozens of MVPDs" and millions of their subs to pay dramatically higher fees, to the tune of $24 million in the first year alone.

The clauses allow Nexstar to apply its retrans agreement to stations it acquires in markets where it already has a retrans deal with that MVPD.

ACA called the widespread application of those clauses in the deal a merger-specific harm that needs corrective conditions.

"This merger presents an opportunity for the commission to protect consumers from paying higher cable rates as a direct consequence of the merger’s triggering of numerous after-acquired station clauses. To ameliorate the direct harm resulting from this transaction, the Commission should condition approval of any license transfers on Nexstar’s commitment not to exercise its right to trigger harmful after-acquired station clauses for the duration of its agreement with an MVPD."