LeGeyt Talks VMVPDs, Lobbying at NAB Town Hall

NAB CEO Curtis LeGeyt repeated his call for the FCC to refresh the record on reclassifying streamers as MVPDs in an NAB-members-only virtual town hall Thursday, said an NAB release on the event: “What we’re asking the FCC to do is to reopen a proceeding that has been dormant for the last nine years that takes a look at whether those rules of the road that apply to the cable and satellite services ought to be extended to virtual MVPDs.” “It turns out we didn’t need new or old regulations to allow the streaming market to develop and thrive,” said a spokesperson for the Streaming Innovation Alliance in an email Wednesday. The SIA is an advocacy group formed by streamers such as Disney and Netflix to oppose applying retransmission consent rules to VMPVDs. The rise of streaming companies “is a great news story about innovation and consumer technology,” the spokesperson said. In the townhall, LeGeyt also urged local broadcasters to talk to their lawmakers in support of items such as requiring AM in cars and preventing radio performance royalties. “Certainly we can be making the policy arguments as a trade association here in Washington but our members need to tell the story of how this is impacting their service,” LeGeyt said.