It calls itself “an advocacy coalition dedicated to protecting consumer choice and innovation in the streaming video marketplace.” That’s D.C. parlance for a lobbying group that believes “healthy competition” doesn’t involve in any way the expansion of retransmission consent legislation enacted some three decades ago to virtual MVPDs such as YouTube TV and Hulu — members of this coalition.
Now, the Preserve Viewer Choice Coalition is calling out the voice of broadcast media in Washington for its efforts to help get carriage fees from these digitally distributed platforms.
According to the coalition, the National Association of Broadcasters is “pushing forward their agenda” this week on Capitol Hill.
This prompted the Coalition to go on the offensive, issuing a memo reiterating its stance on the application of cable regulations by the FCC to video streaming services.
In short, the Coalition says, “It’s critical to remember that today’s streaming environment works for entertainment and news producers as well as viewers.”
Translation: The FCC should in no way extend retrans rules to vMVPDs.
If it did, it would run into legal problems, the Coalition claims. That’s because, in its view, the FCC, with the backing of Congress, has already established that it does not have the authority to regulate streaming like cable.
How so? The FCC “affirmed its stance on this matter,” the PVCC says, during a House Energy and Commerce hearing in June 2023, and then again at a hearing in November 2023. “Without direction from Congress, the FCC does not have the authority to apply ‘90s era cable regulation to streaming platforms,” the PVCC asserts.
The Coalition even quotes FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, whose relationships with MVPDs has grown more cozy over the last several years as broadband policies that did not result in potential 2-2 deadlocks were greeted with bipartisan approval.
In Rosenworcel’s words, says the PVCC, “Our duties and authority in this area are constrained by the 1984 Cable Act and the 1992 Cable Act… That’s why I think the request to incorporate virtual service providers is complex, doesn’t fit neatly in the law… I think fundamentally this is an issue where those who want us to act are going to have to come to Congress.”
The Coalition goes on to share results of a survey it conducted of 1,500 registered voters, who “overwhelmingly oppose regulating streaming like cable.”
Lastly, the PVCC, like the pro-cable TV services group American TV Alliance, claims the regulatory proposal “would damage the streaming landscape by increasing consumer costs, limiting content options and harming innovation in the space.”
Rather than rein in C-suite executive pay, MVPDs have regularly decided to pass the increase in retransmission consent fees paid to broadcast TV stations seeking fair compensation for the right to carry their content to consumers.
That said, several publicly traded broadcast TV companies now earn more from retransmission consent fees in a fiscal quarter than from core advertising, making vMVPD revenue a potentially lucrative way to combat long-term ad trends, which point to downward results in the coming years absent non-broadcast revenue tied to the ATSC 3.0 broadcast television standard.
Asked by RBR+TVBR how to best handle compensation for carriage of broadcast TV stations on a vMVPD, a Coalition spokesperson responded late Monday by noting, “The current streaming landscape allows big affiliate groups to directly negotiate carriage of their content with streaming services. This provides viewers with endless viewing options, including almost every local broadcast channel.”
However, it is unclear how companies ranging from News-Press & Gazette Co. and privately held WINK-TV in Fort Myers, Fla., to large publicly traded groups including TEGNA, Sinclair Inc., The E.W. Scripps Co., Gray Television and Nexstar Media Group would get their share of the dollars.
As the Preserve Viewer Choice Coalition sees it, the fees that ultimately go to broadcast TV station owners are up to … the viewer.
“Like any other marketplace, the value of any product, or in this case content, is determined by consumer demand, which should drive the terms under which it is licensed, as happens today in a well-functioning video streaming marketplace,” a PVCC spokesperson says. “This is not the time to turn back the clock and embrace old-school regulations that would treat streaming as if it were cable, reducing viewer choice and raising costs for consumers.”
