http://www.marketwatch.com/story/local-tv-poses-hurdle-to-streaming-services-2015-09-04
Local TV poses hurdle to streaming services
As Sony Corp. was ramping up its Playstation Vue streaming television service
that launched in March, it hammered out a deal with 21st Century Fox to pick up
the signals of Fox’s local TV stations.
Then this summer, as Sony looked to expand the service nationwide, Fox proposed
a way to add the nearly 200 affiliate stations that carry Fox network
programming but that the company doesn’t own. The board that represents those
affiliates in an advisory capacity rejected the deal, believing they wouldn’t
be getting a fair share of revenue from carriage payments, according to people
familiar with the matter.
“It wasn’t the concept that was rejected,” said an executive at one Fox
affiliate station. “The network believes that they are the ones worth all the
money.”
The episode illustrates a major challenge for any entrant in the emerging
streaming-TV business. The difficulty of lining up deals to offer CBS, ABC, NBC
and Fox programming is one reason Apple Inc. has decided to push back the
Web-TV service it had originally hoped to launch in September, according to
people familiar with the matter.
It also helps explains why Dish Network Corp.’s Sling TV streaming service
still doesn’t offer the major broadcasters. For Sony, issues like the Fox spat
with affiliates have kept Sony PlayStation Vue confined to half a dozen cities.
The big networks and their affiliates are wrangling over which of them will be
the ones to negotiate with the new generation of direct-to-consumer streaming
services, and what each side’s split of monthly subscription fees should be.
