Streaming Giants (Netflix, Disney, Warner Bros and Others) Unite for the First Time to Form the Streaming Innovation Alliance (SIA)

Streaming giant companies have come together to form a new trade group called the Streaming Innovation Alliance (SIA). This unity gives Netflix, Disney, Warner Bros., Discovery, Paramount, and other players the leverage to promote their initiatives with both current and future government policies concerning streaming—this is the first time streaming video providers have come together.

The SIA aims to find ways to grow even with a changing entertainment landscape that includes content creators on social platforms, which these companies don’t necessarily want to be grouped with.

Members of the Streaming Innovation Alliance include Netflix, Paramount+, Peacock, PlutoTV, Telemundo, AfroLandTV, America Nu Network, BET+, Discovery+, For Us By Us Network, Max, the Motion Picture Association, MotorTrend+, TelevisaUnivision and Vix, Vault, and the Walt Disney Co. The group said the SIA will advocate for federal and state policies that build on the strong, competitive, and pro-consumer market for streaming video. 

However, not all streaming companies are included in this list—companies that are absent from the Streaming Innovation Alliance’s initial roster include Amazon, Apple, Google/YouTube, and Roku.

The Streaming Innovation Alliance has gotten two DC leaders as senior advisers: Fred Upton, a Republican who is a 36-year veteran of the U.S. House of Representatives, and Mignon Clyburn, a Democrat who served as acting chair of the Federal Communications Commission.

The SIA group also mentioned some notable names that made the collaboration a success. The group noted that the Chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association, Charles Rivkin, held the leading role in pushing for the SIA. He said that streaming provides great value, vast programming choices, and unprecedented options for consumers. The MPA looks forward to working with the SIA and its members to ensure federal and state policy propels this incredible innovation forward and doesn’t undermine the value and diversity consumers are enjoying today.

Speaking more about the alliance of streaming providers to form SIA, Clyburn said: Streaming services have opened up a new era of progress for program diversity that is bringing relevant stories and options to historically underserved communities at a record pace while opening doors for production jobs to people of color that have been shut for decades. Any policy that drags down streaming would turn back the clock on this vital progress as well.

Upton added: The rise of innovative, new video streaming services is an American success story we should celebrate and encourage, not smother with obsolete and ill-fitting rules and regulations designed for completely different technology, products, and business models.

Upon the launch, SIA released the results of a recent poll, and it shows that 70% of registered voters view streaming services "favourably" or “very favourably," with approval even higher among younger voters and in communities of colour. In addition, by at least a 2-to-1 margin, voters “worry new regulations could require streaming services to collect more data or deter them from offering sensitive programming,” while two-thirds of those surveyed fear new rules will threaten “diverse and independent services the most,” according to the SIA.