{"id":112809,"date":"2015-05-04T17:12:09","date_gmt":"2015-05-04T23:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/gardner-promises-to-fight-for-denver-tv\/"},"modified":"2015-05-04T17:12:09","modified_gmt":"2015-05-04T23:12:09","slug":"gardner-promises-to-fight-for-denver-tv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/gardner-promises-to-fight-for-denver-tv\/","title":{"rendered":"Gardner promises to fight for Denver TV"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"U.S.
U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., told a business roundtable Friday morning at La Plata Electric Association that he\u2019s committed to easing bureaucratic hurdles for bringing Denver TV to Southwest Colorado.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Sen. Cory Gardner on Friday, vowed to fix the \u201corphan\u201d counties issue that prevents some residents in La Plata and Montezuma counties from seeing Denver TV broadcasts.<\/p>\n

The Federal Communications Commission is getting ready to issue rules that could allow counties to petition for a change in designated market area. Durango and Cortez are in Albuquerque\u2019s designated market area.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m committed to not only continuing this fight but being able to say we\u2019ve won this fight,\u201d Gardner, R-Colo., said in a meeting with local government officials held at La Plata Electric Association headquarters.<\/p>\n

Designated market areas, or DMAs, are determined by Nielsen, a New York-based company. Some local residents do receive Denver TV, but it depends on one\u2019s location and TV service.<\/p>\n

County Treasurer Allison Morrissey expressed frustration about the lingering issue. \u201cWhat is the holdup? I mean, we\u2019ve been working on this for 10 years,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Spina replied that Albuquerque TV stations have a financial interest in keeping La Plata and Montezuma counties in their DMA. The more potential viewers the stations have, the higher rates they can charge for advertisements.<\/p>\n

Gardner assured the government officials that he\u2019s working to solve the issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cClearly, this is an issue that is a top concern of mine,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s time to stop having a conversation about what we\u2019re trying to do \u2013 and wouldn\u2019t it be nice to have a conversation about what we\u2019ve done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gardner, who was elected to the Senate in November, also heard from about a dozen local business people in a roundtable session before the Denver TV meeting. The discussion ranged widely, but many participants echoed familiar concerns regarding excessive taxation and burdensome regulations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis Internal Revenue code is the most absurd document ever created by man,\u201d said Gary Muller, a Durango accountant.<\/p>\n

Muller said the tax system should be replaced by a national sales tax that could have lower rates for basics, such as groceries.<\/p>\n

Matt Taylor, president of integrated payments for Vantiv, said the payment-processing industry needs room to innovate in areas such as mobile payments without government regulations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Durango, senator says it\u2019s a top concern<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":112810,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[13],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-112809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-frontpage-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112809"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=112809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}