When it comes to the Wall Street investment community, knowledge of retransmission consent agreements runs high. After all, quarterly earnings calls from publicly traded broadcast television companies often highlight how strong retrans revenue is, perhaps presenting a total revenue number higher than core advertising.
This may explain why SVB MoffettNathanson senior analysts Robert Fishman and Michael Nathanson have analyzed the “stormy relationship” between network affiliates owned by local broadcast TV station groups and vMVPDs. “Network programmers and their TV station affiliate partners have longstanding relationships that, over time, have been mostly peaceful and mutually beneficial,” they share. “However, during periods of negotiations, we are usually not surprised to see more noise around which party has the leverage and how that impacts the terms of new reverse compensation deals.”
But, Fishman and Nathanson share, the latest disputes surrounding major broadcast TV companies such as Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair Broadcast Group and their network partners feel a little different.
