Local businesswoman testifies before House subcommittee on rural telecommunications

The wave in rural telecommunications needs new signals according to Poplar Bluff businesswoman and Boycom Cablevision Inc. president Patricia Boyers, who went to the nation’s capital Tuesday to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s subcommittee on communications and technology.

Boyers

Wednesday morning after returning home, Boyers explained she went to the hearing on the STELAR Review: Protecting Consumers in an Evolving Media Marketplace to represent smaller rural markets.

In July, Boyers will be sworn in as only the second women in 27 years to head the America’s Communications Association, which represents small and medium-sized independent operators.

STELAR is the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act Reauthorization dating from 1988, which established the compulsory license allowing satellite operators to import distant network TV station affiliates into local markets where viewers lack access to them for a variety of reasons.

“STELAR comes up every five years to sunset and comes back for the House Energy and Commerce Committee to revisit,” Boyers said.

A lot of things have been added since STELAR has been in effect. She and her husband Steve have watched how the changes have effected rural areas of the country. The Boyers opened their business in 1992, basically mortgaging their home and farm to bring telecommunications broadband, phone and video to the rural areas of Southeast Missouri.

“Some of the areas Steve and I represent include Piedmont, Doniphan, Grandin, Wapappello, Van Buren and outside of Poplar Bluff,” she said.

When they entered the market, Boyers said she called on station owners in Cape Girardeau, Jonesboro, Ark. and in Kentucky to negotiate prices. Today, these stations are owned by large corporations in major metropolitan areas.

Testifying “is our opportunity to let Congress know what is it like to live in Grandin or on the Clearwater waterfront. Not everybody lives in LA and can hang a coat hanger out their windows and receive programing,” she said.

Boyers believes “it is rural verses metro. The laws are pricing the services outside what customer in rural areas can afford.

Boyers said, many of the customers have bad credit and cannot afford Dish or DirectTV.

“It’s never been easy. Our systems are very rural. Our systems are 147 miles away from our ‘local’ NBC affiliate, and more than 75 miles away from the ‘local’ ABC and CBS stations,” Boyers said. “Most of my subscribers can’t get these signals free, over the air. And none of these stations offer our local news, sports, or weather — no matter what others might tell you today.

“Their practices are especially bad for small operators like me,” she believes. “The FCC reports that small cable systems now pay, on average, at least 30% more than large systems pay for retransmission consent. For my small systems, that amount is 47%.”

Today, the four affiliated broadcast stations make up 20% of Boycom’s programming fees, and that percentage is growing at a rate increase of 200% with every renewal cycle, Boyers said.

“I know you care as much as I do about your constituents and my customers who are elderly and on fixed incomes that depend on us for video service and are greatly impacted by higher subscription prices,” she told the committee.

“We have a very price-sensitive population. Four of our five counties are ‘perpetually impoverished.’ This simply means that the medium annual household income of these counties has been below the national poverty level since the 1960 census.”

Boyers challenged the officials, saying, “I also know you care about closing the digital divide. Every precious dollar that we could put toward deploying broadband back even further into the woods, is being sucked up by ever-increasing retransmission consent fees. Small, rural, independent operators are your answer to the digital divide.

“By turning a deaf ear to rural customers’ plight simply ensures those who live in the hills and hollers of Southeast Missouri and the rest of rural America will be uneconomical to reach or those who do have service will pay through the nose,” she said.

“The mandated regulatory advantages given to broadcasters make a free market solution impossible,” she added. “Now I hate the idea of Congress getting more involved in my business, but the government is already involved with everything from basic-tier buy through to channel placement rules.”

The STELAR act was extended last in 2014 until the end of the this year.