Fox Affils Push Back On Reverse Comp Plan

Key station group executives convened in Dallas Thursday to discuss the terms of the reverse comp provisions in a new affiliation renewal agreement being introduced by Fox.

Some Fox affiliates are said to be concerned that Fox wants to shift from a multi-year reverse comp agreement to an annual one, with the new agreement based on DMA households instead of MVPD households as in the past, a source with knowledge of the situation says.

After the closed-door session, Jeff Rosser, Fox affiliate board chair, confirmed that affiliation renewals were addressed. But Rosser declined comment on the details discussed, on grounds that session — to which network reps were not invited — was intended to be confidential.

“There was a lot of discussion related to the affiliation agreement renewals and what we might expect going forward with our network, but it wasn’t the only thing,” said Rosser.

In addition to affiliation issues, the group also discussed legislative, regulatory and primetime issues, Rosser said.

Scott Grogin, a Fox network spokesman, also declined comment on the specifics of Fox’s new affiliation agreements.

“We would never comment on anything to do with our affiliation agreements,” Grogin said. “Those are private negotiations between us and our affiliate members.”

Rosser said nearly 70 owners, group heads and high-level managers attended the session, representing 47 companies owning 168 Fox affiliates — 86% of the total Fox affiliates.

“That should reflect the level of challenges we are all having together, and we were just having dialogue as to how we might best meet those challenges in a positive productive way,” Rosser said.