Consultant Duane Lammers, known as “The Hammer.” has been helping station groups fight for cash in their retransmission consent negotiations with cable operators, Multichannel News reports. He’s not beloved by his opponents. “The system allows broadcasters like Lammers to negotiate in ways where they don’t care what happens to cable operators or consumers, because all they want is pay, period,”  ACA president Matt Polka tells the trade paper. “They don’t care whether consumers have to pay $4 to $6 more for broadcast signals or not.”
—Jon Lafayette