The proposed Disney/Fox/Warner Bros. Discovery sports streaming joint venture (see 2402070006) raises questions about sports streaming competition, choice and access, House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., and Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, said Tuesday in a letter to CEOs of the three companies. Pointing to concerns about higher prices for consumers and less-fair licensing terms for sports leagues and video distributors, the lawmakers posed a series of questions, such as whether the JV will distribute channels of non-JV partners, whether the three programmers will implement provisions that prevent anticompetitive sharing of pricing or other sensitive competitive information with each other, and. whether the three will continue bidding competitively against one another for sports rights as they become available.
CTA is “concerned” about a joint proposal for closed caption display settings accessibility from NCTA and a number of consumer groups representing the hearing impaired, it said in comments filed this week in docket 12-108. Under the proposal (see 2403190056), caption display settings would be located in one place and accessible by a single button, key or icon, and cable operator apps on third-party devices would respect the caption setting of the host device. “The 2024 Joint Proposal, although a notable development, is limited in nature and does not provide answers to many foundational questions that remain outstanding in the proceeding,” CTA said. The proposal doesn’t specify where caption settings would be stored or how responsibility for captions should be divided among distributors, programmers, app owners, device-makers and operating systems, CTA said. It also doesn’t cover how companies should handle the privacy implications of sharing user caption setting information, the group said. Any eventual FCC rules on the matter “should be appropriately tailored to the fact that different participants in the video-display ecosystem control different elements of the user experience” and should “align responsibility accordingly,” CTA said. Any final regulations “should avoid design mandates, be forward-looking, provide a reasonable compliance period and preserve implementation flexibility” CTA said.
Local TV broadcasters' retransmission revenues will likely peak in 2025 at just shy of $9 billion, followed by slight declines the following five years, S&P said Monday. It said price increases during contract renewals will be relatively moderate and not offset elevated subscriber churn. "It will be increasingly difficult for local TV broadcasters to increase prices given the already high cost of pay-TV, declining TV audiences, weaker broadcast network content, and less exclusive broadcast network content (as the parent companies of the broadcast networks prioritize their owned streaming platforms versus their owned broadcast networks)," the report said. S&P said local broadcasters' retrans revenues should be up 2.8% this year, driven by Nexstar and Sinclair, with gross retransmission revenues for most of the other local TV broadcasters likely flat to down in the low single-digit percentages.
Cable TV systems have no reason any longer to preclude carriage of stations throughout a designated market area that opt for must-carry status, One Ministries said Thursday in docket 24-14. Capacity no longer limits systems and must-carry rules should be updated to reflect that, it said. Large cable systems that also operate major networks use the must-carry rules to preclude carriage of smaller independent stations throughout the market, One Ministries said. It should be required that full-power TV stations get carried by cable systems throughout TV markets assigned to that station.
Comments are due April 29, replies May 13, on a proposed reinstated collection by the FCC of Form 395-A, which gathers multichannel video programming distributors' workforce composition data, the Media Bureau said Wednesday. The Form 395-A Further NPRM was adopted 3-2 in February alongside an order reinstating collection of broadcaster workforce demographic data via Form 395-B (see 2402220078). Comments are to be submitted in docket 98-204.
Ad-supported video on demand is increasingly turning its eye to subscriptions, Rethink TV said Wednesday. By 2029, subscription revenue is expected to comprise almost half of user-derived AVOD platform revenue, narrowly behind advertising revenue. Driving this is the rise of subscription VOD with advertising, with almost every major SVOD platform -- except Apple TV -- now offering some lower-priced ad-supported tier, it said. That SVOD trend and the increase of free ad-supported TV like Pluto TV and Tubi are squeezing AVOD platforms like Dailymotion, Crunchyroll, MX Player, Fandango At Home, Youku and Viki out of the over-the-top video advertising marketplace, with AVODs now trying to double down on subscriptions, it said.
The resignations of Warner Bros. Discovery board members Steven Miron and Steven Newhouse (see 2404010068) follow the DOJ's Antitrust Division's concern that the two also serving on the Charter Communications board violated Section 8 of the Clayton Act, Justice said Monday. DOJ said Charter's Spectrum cable service and WBD's Max's streaming service are both video distributors. The Clayton Act's Section 8 bars people from serving simultaneously on the boards of competitors. Miron and Newhouse were Advance Publications designees on both boards, it said. Justice "will continue to vigorously enforce the antitrust laws when necessary to address overreach by corporations and their designated agents," Deputy Assistant Attorney General Michael Kades said.
The FCC's proposed $1.8 million proposed forfeiture for Nexstar and sidecar operation Mission Broadcasting (see 2403220067) is "an encouraging sign to everyone that has been urging the Commission to bring an end to this media ownership shell game" that are sidecar agreements, ACA Connects Vice President-External Affairs Zamir Ahmed blogged Thursday. He said broadcasters use sidecars to "circumvent federal rules and squeeze even more money out of pay-TV subscribers." The FCC action "should be just the first step in increased oversight of sidecar agreements that overstep the law," he said.
An FCC proposal that requires broadcasters and MVPDs to report on blackouts related to retransmission consent negotiations exceeds FCC authority and wouldn’t collect useful information, all four broadcaster network affiliate groups said. Instead, they urged the agency to focus on reopening the record on reclassifying streaming services as MVPDs. The FCC’s attention “should be trained on seeking 'basic information' about the ever-changing, uber-competitive multichannel video programming distribution ecosystem” and virtual MVPDs, said the affiliate groups for Fox, ABC, NBC and CBS in reply comments posted Wednesday in docket 23-427. Adding regulations to traditional MVPDs while leaving competing linear streaming services "entirely free of such regulations” will not help consumers, the groups said. “The instant proceeding underscores that the Commission’s multichannel video distribution rules are becoming increasingly irrational, underinclusive, and out of step with current marketplace realities.”
TV revenue in the U.S. dropped $2 billion last year, to $220.9 billion, nScreenMedia's Colin Dixon blogged Monday. Revenue from traditional pay TV and advertising was lower, while virtual multichannel video programming distributors, subscription VOD and connected TV ads were up. He said disc sales and rentals continued falling while digital rentals and sales saw a slight gain. At the end of 2022, 70% of U.S. TV revenue came from traditional pay TV, disc sales and rentals, and traditional TV ads, but their combined share dropped to 64% in 2023, Dixon said.