A new trade group — the Streaming Innovation Alliance — brings together Netflix, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount and other players to promote their interests to politicians and government entities. It marks the first time competing streaming-video providers have banded together in a unified lobbying front.
The launch members of the Streaming Innovation Alliance (website at this link) are: AfroLandTV, America Nu Network, BET+, Discovery+, For Us By Us Network, Max, the Motion Picture Association, MotorTrend+, Netflix, Paramount+, Peacock, PlutoTV, Telemundo, TelevisaUnivision and Vix, Vault and the Walt Disney Co. The SIA will “advocate for federal and state policies that build on the strong, competitive, and pro-consumer market for streaming video,” according to the group.
Companies notably absent from the Streaming Innovation Alliance’s initial roster include Apple, Amazon, Google/YouTube and Roku.
The Streaming Innovation Alliance has tapped two well-known DC leaders as senior advisers: Fred Upton, a Republican who is a 36-year veteran of the U.S. House of Representatives, and Mignon Clyburn, a Democrat who served as acting chair of the Federal Communications Commission.
The group said, Charles Rivkin, chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association, played a “leading role” in organizing the SIA. “Streaming provides great value, vast programming choices, and unprecedented options for consumers,” Rivkin said in a statement. “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.”
Clyburn commented, “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. Any policy that drags down streaming would turn back the clock on this vital progress as well.”
Upton added, “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.”
As part of the launch, the SIA released the results of a recent poll finding that 70% of registered voters view streaming services “favorably” or “very favorably,” with approval even higher among younger voters and in communities of color. In addition, by at least a 2-to-1 margin, voters “worry new regulations could require streaming services to collect more data or deter them from offering sensitive programming,” while two-thirds of those surveyed fear new rules will threaten “diverse and independent services the most,” according to the SIA.
