LAS VEGAS — Broadcast networks, peeved that TV audiences are moving to platforms for which they don’t have big live sports rights, are likely to try negotiating hard when rights are due for renewal.
“Broadcasters have paid godawful sums of money,” Paul Sweeting, a media analyst who consults through his own Concurrent Media Strategies and writes for Gigaom Research, tells Beet.TV in this video interview. “The audiences are moving online – the broadcasters don’t have these rights because the leagues keep them to themselves.
“The next time the contracts come up, you’re going to get a big fight between the current broadcasters and the leagues over who has the rights to do that.
“If you’re paying tens of billions of dollars for the rights, you cannot justify continuing to paying those license fees. We’re quickly approaching a point where the current numbers will no longer work.”
He was interviewed for Beet.TV at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
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