Retrans Fees Paid to TV Stations Jumping 20% This Year, SNL Kagan Says
TV stations expect retransmission consent fees to hit $7.7 billion this year, up 20 percent from a year ago, and reach $11.6 billion by 2020, SNL Kagan said in a news release Wednesday. This year, cable is expected to pay…
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$4.1 billion, with direct broadcast satellite paying $2.6 billion and telco video $1 billion, SNL Kagan said in its analysis, saying by 2020, cable likely will be paying $5.6 billion annually and DBS $4 billion, with telco video unchanged. Though retrans fees paid to TV station owners have gone up, owners also have faced bigger increases in network programming costs that then affect their affiliation renewal contracts, SNL Kagan said. Major affiliation station group owners are expected to remit $2.1 billion to the major broadcast networks this year, up 36 percent from 2015, it said. The average TV station's retrans fee per subscriber per month is expected to go from $1.40 this year to $2.21 by 2022, though some major network owned-and-operated stations, large-market affiliate stations and smaller-market stations with multiple big four networks will average more, the researcher said: The $1.87 retrans fee the TV station industry will likely receive on average by 2019 will put TV stations ahead of all basic cable networks in terms of affiliate fees per subscriber per month, except for ESPN, TNT and Disney Channel. Most regional sports networks also will have monthly affiliate fees per subscription well above the broadcast station average retrans fee, SNL Kagan said.