As RBR+TVBR reported on Monday, negotiations between The Walt Disney Co. and Google’s YouTube TV broke down late last week, resulting in another retransmission consent impasse and a “Blackout” to the virtual MVPDs customers of every ABC Owned Station and ABC network affiliate — as well as every Disney-owned cable channel.
For the EVP of Public Affairs at the NAB, the carriage fee feud comes “thanks to Big Tech’s heavy hand in deciding what viewers can and cannot watch.”
Michelle Lehman of the NAB lamented how those relying on YouTube TV to tune to ESPN were prevented from watching the Arizona Cardinals’ win over the Dallas Cowboys on Monday Night Football.
This came following a weekend of disruption for college football fans, and there’s a clear reason in Lehman’s mind. “Google doesn’t want to fairly compensate ABC stations for this programming, and the Big Tech giant’s market power gives it enormous control over consumers’ access to entertainment, information and news,” she says.
It’s an extension of a narrative that has permeated every retransmission consent battle over the last several years — broadcasters that have invested millions of dollars in enhanced local news and public affairs programming want their fair share of the profits MVPDs and vMVPDs take in from subscribers who consume their channels. The flip side of the story, from the point of view of the cable TV industry, is that consumers are hurt and MVPDs shouldn’t have to pay evermore dollars for channels that are “free” to consumers.
With reverse compensation a huge matter for ABC (leading WPLG-10 in Miami to go independent after failing to reach a fair ABC affiliation renewal earlier this year), getting a fair retrans agreement is paramount for a broadcast TV station ownership group.
What makes YouTubeTV’s failure to bring a new ABC carriage deal to fruition particularly vexing is the vMVPDs swift growth thanks in large part to its acquisition of NFL Sunday Ticket from DirecTV. With that deal, YouTubeTV leapfroged to the head of the class. And, it started to flex its might, putting a fresh NBCUniversal carriage deal in place in the final hour before a “blackout.” Meanwhile, discussions with TelevisaUnivision remain ongoing after YouTubeTV pulled that company’s channels, by law, after its old carriage deal lapsed.
That’s why Lehman believes “it is time to level the playing field, because when local broadcasters are sidelined, it is not just sports fans who lose. It is every community that depends on fact-based reporting, public safety alerts and a shared civic connection. It’s time for Washington to modernize broadcast ownership rules and stop giving Big Tech the unfair advantage to control what you see and hear.”
