The nation’s two direct broadcast satellite service providers, in addition to vMVPD Fubo, conservative-leaning cable network Newsmax, and four public interest groups have written to Congressional leaders seeking multiple hearings on the future of competition in pay TV.
What’s fueling this desire? Look no further than the recently announced plan to develop a “Hulu for Sports.”
Newsmax and Fubo were joined by Dish, DirecTV, and PIRGs Sports Fans Coalition, American Economic Liberties Project, Electronic Frontier Foundation and Open Markets Institute in noting that, in their view, “recent developments in the pay-TV market – including the programming giants’ new joint venture , a streaming TV service that would control 80% of national live sports broadcasts, raise serious competition concerns that call for Congress’s immediate oversight.”
For Fubo, getting Members of Congress on board would move the company beyond its antitrust lawsuit filed in February against The Walt Disney Company, FOX Corporation, Warner Bros. Discovery and their affiliates. With Fubo’s entire business model potentially damaged by the concept of a “Hulu for Sports,” the company believes the trio of companies are only continuing “a years-long campaign to block Fubo’s innovative sports-first streaming business, resulting in significant harm to both Fubo and consumers.”
In particular, Fubo thinks a sports-streaming joint venture “steals Fubo’s playbook.”
The letter cites a report from The Wall Street Journal suggesting the JV would control 80% of all national live sports broadcasts, and approximately 55% of all live sports (regional and national).
Why are DirecTV and Dish co-signatories? In the letter, it is stated that “these same programming giants enforce anticompetitive and inflationary contract restrictions on distributors that will insulate the JV’s streaming service from head-to-head competition because these contract restrictions prohibit competing distributors from offering consumers their own ‘skinny,’ live sports bundle.”
Yet, the signees add, “However one measures it, the JV will eventually dominate the distribution market for live sports and will drive out competition, leaving consumers captive to the JV for live sports – unless Congress and regulators intervene.”
