Several major streaming services, including Netflix, Max and The Walt Disney Company, 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 Chairman Mignon Clyburn are the senior advisers for the coalition. Charles Rivkin, president and CEO of the Motion Picture Association, helped bring the parties together.
“Streaming offers great value, extensive programming choices and unprecedented options for consumers. The MPA looks forward to working with the SIA and its members to ensure that federal and state policy drives this incredible innovation forward – and does not undermine the value and diversity that consumers enjoy today,” said Rivkin.
The alliance’s first act is the release of a new poll on Tuesday showing that registered voters are “in favor of streaming innovation and are wary of proposals to regulate the market,” such as requiring streaming services to collect more user data or take action that could ‘scare the market’. deter them from offering sensitive programming.”
“Streaming services have opened a new era of progress in programming diversity, bringing relevant stories and options to historically underserved communities at record speed while opening doors to manufacturing jobs for people of color that have been closed for decades,” Clyburn said. “Any policy that reduces streaming would also turn back the clock on this crucial progress.”
“The rise of innovative new video streaming services is an American success story that we should celebrate and encourage, not stifle it with outdated and ill-fitting rules and regulations designed for completely different technologies, products and business models,” Upton said. “Viewers have never gotten more for their entertainment dollar, and I urge policymakers to resist any attempt to curtail this tremendously beneficial innovation. Let us not allow some backward-looking regulatory system to block the gains that consumers value and value so deeply today.”
The group is being launched following the formation earlier this year of the Coalition for Local News, an organization of owners of more than 600 local TV stations, who are calling for a change in the way local TV streaming deals are negotiated. A current loophole in FCC regulations allows streaming platforms to negotiate with network owners, instead of the owners of the local channels.
