The InFOCUS Podcast: Ray Carpenter, DirecTV

The dynamics related to this "blackout" and how privately held DirecTV views the future of the television business model seemingly appeared to be the focus of an "analyst call" hosted by the Chief Financial Officer for the direct broadcast satellite company. From the get-go, the session, which did not include an opportunity for journalists' query, saw Ray Carpenter offer a one-sided, biased viewpoint on one of the touchiest subjects impacting TV stations today: retransmission consent, and what constitutes fair compensation.

"Price gauging" and "a lack of flexibility" programmers "institute" on distributors were just some of the comments Carpenter lobbed at The Walt Disney Co., which saw its station go dark across DirecTV and U-Verse channel lineups on Sunday at 7pm Eastern. While there are always two players involved in a carriage fee negotiation process, MVPDs have consistently pointed fingers at broadcast TV station owners as the guilty party when the loss of TV stations — by law — must come in the absence of a fresh retransmission consent agreements.

On Tuesday morning, Carpenter and DirecTV took it up a notch, and the RBR+TVBR InFOCUS Podcast, presented by dot.FM, is pleased to offer excerpts from the DirecTV analyst call — giving the broadcast media industry an opportunity to hear for themselves the DBS provider's view on retransmission consent.