In October 2019, an executive who was EVP/Business Operations at Univision Communications before joining DirecTV in July 2013 locked horns with Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) regarding a retransmission consent impasse between the direct broadcast satellite service provider and the owner of a FOX affiliate serving his home district that was being “blacked out,” by law.
Robert Thun gained notice for his take on how carriage negotiations take place. “The broadcasters come to us with a gun to our head telling us, ‘you are going to take this price,’” he said at a Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation hearing on STELAR reauthorization.
On Wednesday (1/31), Thun was back on Capitol Hill, this time for a House Energy & Commerce Communications and Technology Subcommittee hearing designed to understand sports media rights in the U.S. And, as far as he’s concerned, the shift of live play-by-play sports programming from regional sports networks shouldn’t be cheered so much.
