WASHINGTON—The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) has announced a new phase in its longstanding campaign to urge Congress and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to overturn existing broadcast ownership rules, which the group argues puts the industry at a severe competitive disadvantage with the global Big Tech companies that dominate the streaming and digital ad landscape.

The NAB campaign underscores what is at stake for local viewers: access to trusted news, emergency information and the live sports that bring communities together, paying particular attention to the role that broadcasters play in providing free access to football, the group reported.

Since April, NAB’s campaign has aired nearly a quarter million television and radio spots across 192 media markets, generating more than 1 billion impressions and $43 million in airtime from TV and radio stations. That reach has translated into action: supporters have sent more than 174,000 emails and 34,000 tweets directly to members of Congress and FCC commissioners, demonstrating strong public demand for modernized rules that allow free, local broadcasting to compete with Big Tech, the group reported.

New creative just released by the NAB also highlights what it calls one of the most pressing issues facing consumers: the risk of losing live sports on free broadcast channels.

A national survey of likely voters conducted in August confirms strong, bipartisan support for keeping sports on local broadcast stations. Among respondents with a firm opinion, an overwhelming 83% said they prefer games on broadcast compared to just 17% who prefer paid streaming – a preference consistent across every demographic and political affiliation, the broadcaster funded group said.

“Local stations are serving communities with live sports, trusted local news and life-saving emergency coverage — all available for free to every American,” said NAB president and CEO Curtis LeGeyt. “But outdated rules are shackling these stations from growing and innovating at a time when Big Tech operates with limitless scale and zero public interest obligations. Consumers deserve more — not fewer — local journalists on the ground and live sporting events accessible without a subscription. The FCC must act quickly to level the playing field so broadcasters can continue investing in the content communities rely on most.”

Calls to modernize ownership have been echoed by state broadcaster associations, the House and Senate, right of center and community groups, all urging policymakers to level the playing field so broadcasters can continue to grow and serve their communities, the NAB said.

TV Tech's extensive coverage of the FCC and the filings made relating to the broadcast regulations can be found here.

The docket where broadcasters and other groups have filed comments with the FCC can be found here.

LONDON—Disney remains the world’s largest media company in a market where six companies now make more than half of the world’s TV and film content, according to a new report from Ampere Analysis. An estimated $126 billion will be spent on film and TV production this year, with Disney’s spending comprising 14% of that figure, fueled by its full acquisition of Hulu earlier this year, which added $9 billion to its total budget.

Since 2022, these six global media companies—Disney, Comcast, Google (YouTube), Warner Bros. Discovery, Netflix and Paramount Global—have spent more than $56 billion in original TV and film content over the past three years, Ampere said, comprising 51% of the total content spend landscape, up from 47% in 2020.

In total, $40 billion of the $126 billion is currently spent on these six operators’ subscription streaming services (including Disney+, Peacock and Paramount+). Netflix is the top spender in streaming content, averaging $14.5 billion in annual investment in original and acquired content since the pandemic four years ago. Ampere expects the company to further grow its investment in 2025 through the acquisition of NFL and WWE rights.

Although it doesn’t fit the traditional studio model of the other five, Google’s YouTube is the third-most-popular streaming destination, according to Ampere, which attributed part of its continued success to partnership deals with major content owners.

Despite production shutdowns caused by the U.S. writers and actors strikes, streamers have continued to support the production landscape by pivoting towards more global strategies, Ampere said. International (non-U.S. originating) programming accounts for 40% of Paramount+’s and 52% of Netflix’s spend in 2024. Such content is typically cheaper to produce and effective in motivating new and niche audiences to subscribe to a platform, supporting revenues, Ampere said.

“Ongoing investment by major studios and streaming platforms into new programming will continue to be key to keeping audiences engaged and entertained,” Ampere Research Manager Peter Ingram said. “We can expect that the content landscape will see low-level growth in 2024 as production schedules recover from disruptions caused by the pandemic and the writers’ and actors’ union strikes. Looking forward, however, while these top six providers will continue to account for the majority of spend, overall growth will plateau as companies look to refocus their output. This will include limiting commissioning volumes and prioritising strategic investments and profitability to counter the current challenges of the media market.”

WASHINGTON—Broadband access, media consolidation and diversity within the broadcast workforce are on the list of priorities for FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks, who outlined his plans in an address to the Media Institute this week. 

Top of the list is improving access to broadband, particularly in light of the pandemic, which closed schools, forcing students to learn from home. Declaring access to the internet a civil right, Starks noted that tens of millions of U.S. families still lack access to high speed broadband, adding that the majority of those families are headed by people of color. 

“Black people and other people of color in America are still, by a wide margin, significantly less likely to have a home broadband connection than their white counterparts,” Starks said. “An essential piece of our broadband deployment challenge is creating digital equity by bridging the digital divide and the opportunity divide.”

Starks cited recent legislation designed to address the divide including the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, which created a $7.17 billion Emergency Connectivity Fund and the FCC’s vote this week to provide funding to eligible schools and libraries to purchase eligible equipment and services for use at locations other than a school or library. In addition, President Biden’s proposed $2.3 trillion infrastructure package, aka the “American Jobs Plan,” targets $100 billion dollars to connect every American to high-speed broadband. 

Starks also noted that along with promoting policies that increase access to broadband, local TV and radio are also an important source of news and information (and among the most trusted), particularly during the past year, but that their survival is being threatened by media conglomerates more interested in the bottom line than in serving their local communities. 

“Localism is one of the pillars that guides the FCC’s regulation of broadcasting, and now more than ever local TV stations must rise to the challenge of continuing to serve local audiences while at the same time navigating the evolving media landscape and managing the evolving needs of their diverse populations of consumers,” Starks told the Media Institute.

Improving diversity in media ownership and employment is also on the commissioner’s to-do list as well.

“The FCC must make sure that every aspect of this industry—from who owns the license to who makes decisions in the production room to who sits in front of the camera—reflects our diversity, he said. “Why is diversity so important? Because what we see and hear, and who we see and hear it from, impacts the way we view our world, our society and ourselves.”

Citing the recent U.S. Supreme Court “Prometheus Radio Project” case, in with the court found that the FCC’s relaxation of media ownership rules was appropriate, Starks said that while the court did agree that the rules at stake—designed to promote competition, localism and diversity—were no longer necessary to serve the agency’s public interest goals, and that the rule changes were not likely to harm minority and female ownership, “nothing in the decision disturbed our long-established ruling that the Commission can take into account how diversity will be affected by our media ownership decisions.

“That’s a big win for agency deference under the Administrative Procedure Act that should provide the necessary space to revisit our rules with diversity front and center as a consideration,” Starks said.

Starks also reiterated his support for a commission inquiry to restart the EEO data collection.

“I welcome the debate over whether there are any valid outstanding concerns—constitutional or otherwise—about how to proceed with fulfilling our statutory obligations here and ensure the promotion of diversity in broadcasting,” he said. “This inquiry is long overdue, and I hope we can move the proceeding forward in short order.”

Finally, Starks reminded the audience about another FCC inquiry on updating the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010 (CVAA), which is designed to help “ensure that individuals with disabilities are able to fully utilize communications services and equipment and better access video programming.” The updates focus on closed captioning, emergency information and improved user interfaces for individuals with disabilities. 

“The Commission recently adopted rules to extend requirements for broadcasters and other video service providers to provide audio description for programming in 40 additional marketing areas over the next four years,” Starks said. “I look forward to developing a record on this important opportunity to update these regulations to ensure that everyone can fully and equally participate in the digital revolution.”

Editor's note: The following editorial was written prior to last week's news of the collapse of the Sinclair Tribune merger. 

Does the television broadcasting industry need further consolidation in order for Next Gen TV to succeed?

That was one of the main arguments put forth by Sinclair in its efforts to acquire Tribune when it announced its deal last year. “The acquisition will enable Sinclair to build ATSC 3.0 advanced services, scale emerging networks and national sales and integrate content verticals,” said Chris Ripley, Sinclair president/CEO at the time.

The $3.9 billion deal would have added 42 stations to Sinclair’s current stable of 193 stations. Even after selling off a number of stations to comply with federal rules, the combined group would control 215 stations reaching 62 percent of U.S. households in 102 television markets.

Last month, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who originally supported the proposed deal, did an about face, expressing doubts about the acquisition after reviewing station transactions—in particular, two stations in Texas and WGN-TV in Chicago, characterizing them as “sham” transactions.

Later, the commission released a hearing designation order that provided more details about their concerns, saying it had “significant questions” about the divestitures.

“We are unable to find upon the record before us, that grant of the applications would be consistent with the public interest,” the commission said, adding that the facts in the order “raise questions about whether Sinclair was the real party in interest under Commission rules and precedents and attempted to skirt the commission’s broadcast ownership rules.”

Sinclair denies any wrongdoing and says it has been straightforward with the commission. Nevertheless, the company said it would be “greatly disappointed if the transaction cannot be completed.”

The FCC’s actions has prompted the Department of Justice to examine the process of TV ad sales and whether broadcasters have conspired to artificially inflate ad pricing. Several class action suits have been filed against Sinclair, Tribune and several other station groups.

The furor that has erupted over this issue illustrates the dilemma broadcasters face in today’s media market. Facing increasing pressure from Silicon Valley over digital advertising platforms based on personal data that can target individual consumers down to their shoe sizes, the broadcast industry is responding by touting the advantages of Next Gen TV, which, because of its IP-based two-way data capabilities, will be able to better compete with the Googles and Amazons of the world in targeted advertising.

“The biggest continual decline in our business is ad revenues,” Mark Aitken, vice president of advanced technology for Sinclair told the Wall Street Journal last year, adding that deployment of the new standard could stop and ultimately reverse that “draining process.”

Now that the merger is in serious doubt, do we need to be concerned over how it will affect the transition to ATSC 3.0? The transition to ATSC 1.0 was a government-mandated transition, with built-in incentives to ensure consumers would continue to receive over-the-air broadcasts. The transition to ATSC 3.0 has no such protections—it is a market-driven, voluntary deployment that will also require cooperation among competitors to transition away from 1.0. Sinclair is not the only station group that has promoted the advantages of consolidation in order to finance the deployment and advantages of ATSC 3.0.

But the benefits far outweigh the burdens of deployment, which could cost as little as $100,000 for a small independent station to as much as $1 million for a facility shared by several. It will enable broadcasters to improve their competitiveness in the digital media marketplace and better serve their local communities. And let’s not forget perhaps the most important incentive of all: When it comes to spectrum, the FCC is effectively telling broadcasters: “Use it or lose it.” The commission has made it clear that our industry will need to make optimum use of our remaining spectrum and to that point, ATSC 3.0 is the end game.

Deal or no deal, I believe Sinclair will continue to work towards deploying the standard. I don’t doubt their offer to “put millions of chips into the hands of suitable device manufacturers free of cost,” still stands. The company holds numerous patents on the standard that will still enhance their bottom line if and when widely deployed. And let’s not forget the importance of alliances such as Pearl TV that continue to test and commence building out facilities to launch Next Gen TV.

The business advantages for ATSC 3.0 extend beyond just the consumer market. Sinclair, in particular has touted the standard’s datagathering advantages for business-to-business and related enterprises.

In short, we are just beginning to touch the surface of Next Gen TV’s vast opportunities and its success is not dependent on any one company. The potential collapse of the Sinclair Tribune merger could make it more difficult to reach critical mass, however it won’t stop the train.

WASHINGTON—The American Cable Association is among those raising concerns about the potential impact of any new media consolidation.

ACA represents smaller and medium-sized, independent cable companies whose subscribers primarily are in rural and smaller suburban markets.

In comments to the Federal Communications Commission, the trade group discussed possible changes to the rule that bans a TV station group from reaching more than 39 percent of U.S. TV households.

It said that broadcasters must demonstrate that any benefits of new consolidation would outweigh the downsides including harms related to retransmission consent. “ACA remains skeptical that such a case can be made, and the recent revelations that allegedly ‘local’ news anchors must read scripts delivered from Sinclair corporate headquarters have only deepened our skepticism," ACA President and CEO Matthew M. Polka stated in an announcement.

[Read: State AGs Say FCC Can't Raise Ownership Cap]

The group responded to discussions about the UHF discount, which allows UHFs to reduce the number of households their signals reach when calculating audience reach. It noted that the system was created when analog UHF signals were weaker than analog VHF signals; now, it said, the NAB wants to expand the discount based not on signal strength but because stations “reach” a smaller audience than they did before as broadcast ratings have decreased — thus all stations UHF and VHF alike should now receive a discount.

ACA countered by saying the FCC has no discretion to change the basis of how the UHF discount is calculated; and that even if it could, the commission can’t rationally provide all stations with the same discount. “Ratings have nothing to do with a station’s ‘reach,’ at least as the FCC has always understood that term, and the FCC cannot now change that understanding, which, since at least 2004, has been Congress’ understanding too,” it wrote.

The cable group said the commission will have to justify any “Everybody Discount” in the same way it must justify raising or eliminating the national 39 percent cap itself. “If the FCC lacks authority to raise the ownership cap directly, it also lacks authority to circumvent the cap through creative changes to the UHF discount.”