On Saturday, a day full of exciting NCAA collegiate football games, and ahead of Monday Night Football season opener on September 9, the DirecTV legal team and its PR machine were in full tilt as the direct broadcast satellite company submitted a “Good Faith Negotiation Complaint” with the FCC in response to its inability to reach a new carriage agreement with The Walt Disney Co.
Now, in a rare move, a Republican Commissioner has issued a statement on “the media marketplace” that directly shows his cards on where he stands on the bitter dispute between station owner and MVPD.
Nate Simington, one of two GOP-aligned Commissioners on the FCC, believes that as the DirecTV/Disney dispute and negotiations continue, “it is a moment to recognize a few truths.”
As Simington points out, roughly one-third of linear network content distributed in the United States is now delivered by OTT platforms. Yet, he laments, “there is zero harmonization, whether in our rules or in industry practice, between network video content distribution over traditional linear MVPDs versus over the top, streaming MVPDs.”
Pointing his attention to Disney and DirecTV, Simington added, “[A]s is so often the case in major disputes between networks and distributors, independently owned and operated affiliates and station groups are left behind, powerless to distribute content to consumers in the way they prefer to consume it.”
With the linear media marketplace “governed by a two-tiered system of rules—legacy rules for some, and close to zero rules for others,” there’s only one solution for Simington.
“We must balance the scales,” he advocates. “A future Commission should take seriously the question of its own uneven hand in the media marketplace. We must either unleash the video marketplace from outdated rules or balance it with smart and targeted reforms.”
But, what cannot persist, he concludes, “is a system that entrenches marketplace power at the expense of the consumer.”
