D.C. Memo: ATVA Says MVPDs Being Left with the Dregs
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ATVA: As more and more TV marquee program shifts to streaming platforms, traditional providers like cable and satellite TV operators (aka Multichannel Video Programming Distributors or MVPDs) are being left with an inferior product, according to the American TV Alliance, an MVPD-backed group that has been challenging Disney, Paramount Global, NBU Universal and others on their tying and bundling practices for many years. "Programmers with direct interests in SVOD [Subscription Video on Demand] services have incentives to shift programming away from pay-TV channels licensed to MVPDs and toward SVOD services, enhancing the value proposition of the SVOD services while eroding that of their pay-TV networks," ATVA said in an FCC filing to document an Oct. 16 meeting with FCC Media Bureau Chief Holly Saurer. ATVA outside counsel Mike Nilsson and Jason Neal said in the filing that programmers affiliated with SVOD services "have incentives to allow attractive programming to appear on MVPD services only at terms that increase MVPD costs and decrease MVPDs’ abilities to streamline their offerings – i.e., to be even more aggressive with bundling and related requirements than in the past." The ATVA team pointed to the Venu sports service by Disney, Fox, and Warner Brothers Discovery as a case study in sports rights holders establishing a sports-exclusive package that it will deny cable and satellite TV operators, who have been clamoring for "skinny" sports and entertainment bundles for decades. "When powerful programmers like Disney seek to offer their most valuable sports programming in a skinny, sports-focused bundle, but force MVPDs to purchase undesirable programming in order to carry ESPN, consumers suffer," ATVA said. In August, a federal judge blocked Venu from launching.