Resources For TV Channel Developers

MEDIA GIANTS TEAM UP TO COUNTER PUSH FOR NEW STREAMING RULES: Broadcast TV networks are teaming up with production companies and some of the largest streaming providers to form a new coalition pushing back on revived efforts to update broadcasting rules for the streaming era, threatening to intensify friction within the broadcast lobby between large broadcasters and local TV affiliate owners over how to grapple with the rise of streaming services.

— Preserve Viewer Choice Coalition members include broadcasters ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, Telemundo, and Univision, streaming platforms like Fubo, Roku, and production studios like Warner Bros. Discovery. The coalition argues that a simmering push for the FCC to reexamine broadcast rules — which currently cover cable and satellite TV providers — to apply them to streaming platforms would also amount to an unnecessary government intervention that would diminish consumers’ viewing options.

— Local broadcast groups, backed by affiliate associations for ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox, launched a rival advocacy group called the Coalition for Local News earlier this month, after Senate Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) took up their cause in a letter to the FCC in June.

— The new coalition puts significant broadcasters in the awkward position of being at odds with the industry’s chief lobbying body, the National Association of Broadcasters. NAB’s board decided last fall to ask the FCC to seek new feedback on a dormant rulemaking on the issue. POLITICO’s John Hendel reported at the time the decision came over the objections of networks like ABC, NBC, and Fox. NAB CEO Curtis LeGeyt downplayed any friction between his members, and the trade group echoed the same sentiment today.

— “Like many large trade associations, some of our members invest significant time and resources in issue-specific coalitions or other organizations outside of NAB, highlighting the diversity of our membership,” NAB…