Ending Retrans Fees as Part of Broadcast Ownership Revisions
ICLE’s recent paper, “Broadcast Ownership, Retransmission, and the Case for Comprehensive Reform,” by scholars Eric Fruits, Geoffrey A. Manne, and Kristian Stout was covered by TV Technology. Read the full story here.
The paper, “Broadcast Ownership, Retransmission, and the Case for Comprehensive Reform,” penned by Eric Fruits, Geoffrey A. Manne, and Kristian Stout, repeats many of the same arguments made by other proponents of changing ownership caps.
Citing competitive pressures from streaming companies, who can reach 100% of U.S. households, they note that “local broadcasters must compete with these services for audiences and advertising revenue, while operating under ownership caps designed for an era in which they were presumed to be dominant media companies. In today’s market, however, broadcasters not only lack market power but face extremely powerful digital competitors whose national scale far exceeds anything broadcasters could legally achieve under the existing limits.”
Such economic pressures have different impacts on local stations depending on their market strength, the authors said, with highly-rated stations cutting back on syndicated content in favor of more local content.