Nexstar Hires Cable Audit Associates For Retrans Collection

Support service to provide contract management, database maintenance

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 11/17/2009 10:10:17 AM

Nexstar is clearly serious about developing retransmission consent payments into a serious second revenue stream.

On the heels of last week's warning to networks that Nexstar it was not looking to share those payments, the company announced Tuesday that it has outsourced support services for the process, hiring Cable Audit Associates to do the heavy lifting.

CAA will provide contract management, subscriber database maintenance, accounts receivable, collections and more for retrans payments from cable, telco and satellite.

"By enlisting the support of CAA in our efforts to maximize the value of our retransmission consent agreements we are able to provide ourselves with even more bandwidth to leverage further our management team's successful operational performance and strategy," said Nexstar Chairman Perry Sook.

Sook told financial analysts last week that networks had a fight on their hands if they wanted a cut of the retrans money, which he said rightly should go to stations for the value of their local programming.

Nexstar has a lot of networks to deal with. It owns or operates 63 stations, including affiliates of NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX, MyNetworkTV and The CW.