NBC Threatens to Black Out Apps on Roku in Dispute Over Peacock

[douglas9]

NBCUniversal plans to black out more than 11 channels on Roku Inc.’s streaming platform Saturday morning, escalating a standoff with the company over its refusal to carry a new video app, Peacock.

NBC’s Peacock and AT&T Inc.’s HBO Max have been unable to secure spots on Roku and Amazon.com Inc.’s Fire TV since launching their streaming services earlier this year.

Roku is demanding, among other things, a cut of the advertising inventory on those apps to sell on its own. Comcast Corp.’s NBC and WarnerMedia, the AT&T division that runs HBO Max, are rejecting that push because they want to make money from ads on their streaming services.

In a statement Friday, NBC said Roku’s “unreasonable demands ultimately hurt both their consumers and their consumer equipment partners to whom they’ve promised access to all apps in the marketplace.”

Roku used similar wording in a statement. “Comcast is removing the channels in order to try to force Roku to distribute its new Peacock service on unreasonable terms,” a spokesperson said.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-18/nbc-threatens-to-black-out-apps-on-roku-in-dispute-over-peacock

[hlthe2b]

1. sigh.. this kind of crap just hurts the consumer. I find it infuriating.

[lpbk2713]

2. I have two Rokus and I won't miss a thing.

They can do whatever they want AFAIC.

[DarthDem]

3. It'll get settled

These disputes always do. However, I'm on Roku's side here. If we had a functioning federal legislature in this country, Comcast would be far more heavily regulated. It gets away with just about anything it wants.

P.S. it would have been nice if Bloomberg had bothered in the linked article to name the 11 channels.

ON EDIT: just checked and found out from another source that the 11 channels subject to the threat aren't being named by Comcast, so that Roku doesn't know precisely what it's being threatened with, another shady tactic right up the alley of an overzealous, unchecked corporation.

[hunter]

4. Television commercials don't exist in my personal universe.

I quit Comcast a long time ago, both cable and news.

This is like watching huge dinosaurs fighting, completely unaware that a big rock from space has already ended them.

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