Major broadcast station owners said on Monday that U.S. regulators should address the trend of Big Tech companies acquiring the rights to broadcast football, baseball and other sporting events, saying it could weaken local TV news.
Major broadcast companies filed comments with the Federal Communications Commission ahead of a comment deadline on Friday.
The FCC opened a review into the growing shift of live sports to pay TV and subscription services away from broadcast networks, seeking comment on actions the agency “could take to ensure continued access by viewers to live sports through free over-the-air broadcast TV.”
Fox Corp (FOXA.O) said free TV viewers could eventually lose access to the World Series, Thanksgiving NFL football games or the Olympics, citing “a world where Big Tech acquires more and more broadcast sports rights – often as a loss leader to support other massive, vertically integrated businesses that primarily profit off of the personal consumption data of its customers.”
