Without advertising, network executives say, media companies would have to charge distributors three times the current rate for their signals.

Back in the early 1990s, lawmakers gave broadcasters the right to charge distributors to carry their signal.

Wholesale energy prices, set by the government, regulate the prices generators may charge distributors who provide electricity to end users.

Free-to-air broadcasters such as CBS, meanwhile, have discovered the wonder of “retrans”, or charging distributors to retransmit their channels.

Approved, by majority vote — NBRS's proposal to charge distributors of VoicePrint a monthly wholesale rate.

According to SNL Kagan, Bloomberg charges distributors a monthly license fee of seven cents per subscriber to carry the channel.

The company stopped charging distributors a fee for SOAPnet months ago, as programming on the channel dwindled and programmers focused more attention on Disney Junior.

Paramount sets no retail price on its videos, but using an industry formula based on the wholesale price that Paramount will probably charge distributors, "Ghost" should cost about $100.

Broadcast television, which suffered through a bruising three months due to steep declines in "American Idol" ratings, was boosted by fees charged distributors to retransmit the Fox Broadcasting signal.

Their business, however, proved lucrative until the advent of Thomas Edison's Motion Picture Patents Company (also known as the Edison Trust), which charged distributors exorbitant fees.

By late in the day, oil companies, which had promised on Wednesday night to freeze prices to protect customers from increases, were instead cutting what they charge distributors and retailers for gasoline and other products.

Dairy giant Fonterra will charge distributors 5 to 7 per cent extra from August 1 for milk, cream and yoghurt that is then sold to cafes, milk bars and convenience stores.

And, in an oddity of California law, the prices that power producers can charge distributors are deregulated, while the prices that those distributors can charge consumers are regulated and restricted.

There are many factors that affect the price manufacturers charge distributors for pesticides and some of these are: ability to warehouse; ability to pay; able to supply timely reports and amount of market coverage.

Broadcasters gained the right to charge distributors cash or some other form of compensation to carry their local signals in the 1992 Cable Act, and they likely would resist any effort to take away the ability to pull a signal once a contract has expired and there is no new deal in place.