Kagan: Retrans Fees to Reach $10.3B by 2021

SNL Kagan predicts that MVPD retransmission consent payments to TV stations will reach $10.3 billion by 2021, up from a projected $6.3 billion in 2015. Kagan is upping its projection of $9.3 billion in retrans fees by 2020 to $9.8 billion.

That is based partly on "strong" advances in year-end 2014 renewals and "step-ups" in current contracts, according to the company. Broadcasters will also get a boost from OTT initiatives that further monetize the signal it said, and will act as a hedge against retrans impasses or cord-cutters.

By 2018, Kagan predicts that the average retrans fee will be $1.53, putting TV stations in the number five position in payments behind only five basic cable nets: ESPN ($8.80); TNT ($2.16), Fox News ($1.67), Fox Sports ($1.57) and Disney Channel ($1.56), as well as RSNs, which Kagan expects also to top that TV station average.

Kagan is also looking for reverse retrans (networks collecting a cut of retrans) from $1.65 billion in 2015 to $3.69 billion in 2021.

(Photo via Ervins Strauhmanis's FlickrImage taken on Sept. 19, 2014 and used per Creative Commons 2.0 license. The photo was cropped to fit 3x4 aspect ratio.)

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.