News

Mickey Mouse is going to Washington. According to a report from Axios, the Walt Disney Company (ABC), alongside such media giants as Paramount Global (CBS), Fox Corp (Fox), NBCUniversal, Warner Bros. Discovery, Univision, Fubo, and Roku are forming their own advocacy group, hoping to persuade the Federal Communications Commission not to change rules that govern how local broadcasters negotiate with streaming platforms.

The group calls itself the “Preserve Viewer Choice Coalition,” which was organized in part to counter the efforts of the Coalition for Local News, which first launched in mid-July. The disagreement between the two coalitions stems from a provision enacted in 2014 that compels cable and satellite providers to negotiate carriage fees directly with the owners of local broadcast stations —companies like Nexstar and Sinclair Broadcasting Group. A loophole in that provision means that virtual multi-channel video-programming distributors (vMVPDs), also known as live TV streaming services, are not forced to go to local broadcasters,...

On Feb. 28, hundreds of local broadcast station executives gathered at Nationals Park in Washington D.C. On the agenda for the Nab-sponsored conference were panels and fireside chats with Sen. Ted Cruz and FCC commissioner Nathan Simington, among others.

But on the sidelines of the conference, according to an attendee, executives also commiserated over a long-simmering fight between the owners of the local TV stations, and their network partners, a fight that burst into the public eye that same month.

While the writers and actors are battling the studios over how streaming cash should be divvied up, the owners of local TV stations affiliated with networks like ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC are in a similar dispute: Who exactly should be negotiating with the owners of streaming multichannel video services? The networks whose name brands (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox) consumers know, or the owners of local affiliates that serve individual markets?...

Local broadcast stations from across the country have joined forces to create an advocacy group that will press the Federal Communications Commission and lawmakers over what it calls the need to modernize regulations to enable them to stream their content.

“The Coalition for Local News,” which is backed ABC, NBC, Fox and CBS television affiliate associations and represents more than 600 local TV stations across the country, is arguing that access to streaming will “protect the future of local news in America.”

“As the most trusted source of news for Americans, local news broadcasts provide timely coverage of important issues and events, emergency weather service, and access to lifesaving information,” the group said in a statement. “The future of local broadcast news is threatened by regulations that need to be modernized and government inaction in exercising existing authority to protect the ability of local news outlets to compete. “

Most notably, the...

Cord cutting may have left audiences with the impression that traditional TV is doomed, but there’s still a large portion of the population that values local news broadcasts highly. A recent survey found that local TV news garnered eight to 12 times as many viewers as streaming in major markets, and now local TV stations are banding together to publicly advocate for reforms from Congress and the Federal Communications Commission.

While it had originally been reported that the organization would lobby lawmakers, a spokesperson for the organization told The Streamable, “The Coalition will not be engaged in traditional lobbying at this point, but rather public advocacy efforts.”

According to Axios, the group of more than 600 local affiliates of ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC stations are requesting the government close a loophole that allows live TV streaming services to bypass negotiating with them directly. Instead, streamers can go all the way up to the national networks,...