DirecTV filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Sunday against the Disney Grooming Syndicate, and if DirecTV prevails, Hollywood’s worst nightmare will become a stark reality.
“In the 10-page complaint,” reports far-left CNN, “DirecTV claimed the negotiations [with the Disney Grooming Syndicate] stalled because, ‘[the] Disney [Grooming Syndicate] insists on bundling and penetration requirements that a federal district court judge in New York recently found … unlawful, anticompetitive, and ‘bad for consumers.’”
Naturally, because CNNLOL’s very survival depends on this “unlawful, anticompetitive, and bad for consumers” bundling, this bombshell is buried under four paragraphs and not even part of the headline. But make no mistake…
This is a very big deal.
“Bundling” is why your cable/satellite TV bill is so high and how Hollywood is able to make billions and billions of dollars through networks almost no one watches. As I have said many times, “bundling” is left-wing affirmative action for Hollywood.
“Bundling” is this: If your cable/satellite TV provider wants to offer customers ESPN and ABC-TV, Disney says that’s okay, but the provider must also accept, pay for, and guarantee a certain number of customers pay for all these lousy and low-rated Disney networks no one watches, like the Disney Channel, NatGeo, Disney Junior, NatGeo Wild, Freeform, Lifetime, FX, FXX, etc.
This is why if you subscribe to cable to watch Fox News and Turner Classic Movies, you are also forced to subscribe and pay for CNN, MTV, and a host of other networks you never watch that actively hate you and seek your destruction.
CNN, MTV, Comedy Central, etc., could never survive outside of this affirmative action. They could never survive on merit (i.e., revenue based on advertising rates based on ratings). Too few people watch.
This is why streaming is an existential threat to Hollywood. To begin with, millions cancel their cable/satellite TV every year and subscribe to streaming, which is based on merit. If you want to watch that streaming outlet’s content, you subscribe to it. This is also why every streaming service not named Netflix has lost billions of dollars. Not enough people want to watch this crap.
Oh, but now, NOW…
DirecTV is looking to make the streaming threat look like nothing. DirecTV wants to blow the entire bundling scam apart through its FCC complaint. Should DirecTV prevail, Disney and other entertainment multinationals will no longer be allowed to force cable/satellite TV providers to accept channels no one watches, which extends to forcing you to pay for channels you never watch.
And it all comes back to Venu…
Venu is the sports streaming monopoly Disney, Warner Bros., Discovery, and Fox are attempting to launch that is stalled due to an injunction filed by Fubo (a streaming sports outlet). What these villains are looking to do is join forces, kill Fubo, corner the market on sports, and then force pay-TV providers to accept their bundles. That’s the endgame: Force their bundles into the streaming world to keep this affirmative action alive.
But.
The judge that hit Venu with the injunction postponing its launch also looked at these carriage deals and declared them “unlawful, anticompetitive, and bad for consumers.” That is seismic. That’s the whole ballgame. These gangsters just ran into a judge who gets it and the whole rigged system could come down.
Let’s hope so.
John Nolte’s first and last novel, Borrowed Time, is winning five-star raves from everyday readers. You can read an excerpt here and an in-depth review here. Also available in hardcover and on Kindle and Audiobook.
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