Several major streaming services, including Netflix, Max and The Walt Disney Co., have formed a trade alliance to advocate for federal and state policies that benefit the streaming industry.
At launch, other members of the Streaming Innovation Alliance include AfroLandTV, America Nu Network, BET+, discovery+, For Us by Us Network, MPA, MotorTrend+, Paramount+, Peacock, PlutoTV, Telemundo, Televisa Univision, Vault TV and Vix.
Former Republican Rep. Fred Upton and former Democratic acting FCC chair Mignon Clyburn are the senior advisers for the coalition. Charles Rivkin, chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association, helped bring the parties together.
“Streaming provides great value, vast programming choices and unprecedented options for consumers. The MPA looks forward to working with the SIA and its members to ensure federal and state policy propels this incredible innovation forward — and doesn’t undermine the value and diversity consumers are enjoying today,” Rivkin said.
The first act of the alliance is the release of a new poll Tuesday that found registered voters “favor streaming innovation and are wary of proposals to regulate the market,” such as requirements that streaming services collect more user data or enact measures that could “deter them from offering sensitive programming.”
“Streaming services have opened up a new era of progress for program diversity that is bringing relevant stories and options to historically underserved communities at a record pace while opening doors for production jobs to people of color that have been shut for decades,” Clyburn said. “Any policy that drags down streaming would turn back the clock on this vital progress as well.”
Added Upton, “The rise of innovative, new video streaming services is an American success story we should celebrate and encourage, not smother with obsolete and ill-fitting rules and regulations designed for completely different technology, products and business models. Viewers have never gotten more for their entertainment dollar, and I urge policymakers to resist any effort to curtail this hugely beneficial innovation. Let’s not allow some backwards-looking regulatory scheme to block gains consumers so strongly value and appreciate today.”
The group launches after the formation earlier this year of the Coalition for Local News, an organization of owners of more than 600 local TV stations, who are advocating for a change in the way streaming deals for local TV are negotiated. A current loophole in FCC regulations allows streaming platforms to negotiate with network owners, rather than the owners of the local stations.