Hollywood Agencies Join Indie Producers to Push New Streaming Ownership Rules

Hollywood's three biggest talent agencies are joining forces with independent producers to rewrite the rules of streaming.

WME, CAA and UTA have formed a coalition with companies including Imagine Entertainment and Legendary, according to Variety. The coalition is organised around legislation that would require streamers to buy at least 50% of their original content from independent producers.

The proposal would also limit how long a streamer can keep exclusive rights to a programme. That cap is designed to restart secondary markets, meaning the afterlife where a show can be resold to other channels or platforms after its first run. Supporters describe the plan as a revival of fin-syn, shorthand for the financial interest and syndication rules that once governed US broadcast television.

The FCC adopted those rules in 1970 to limit network dominance of the primetime schedule, as recorded in Variety's archive. Under the system, networks were barred from owning a stake in the programmes supplied to them. In practice, that forced them to buy series from outside superproducers such as Norman Lear and Grant Tinker rather than make everything in-house.

Backers say the issue is ownership, not just location. Ken Ziffren, co-founder of Ziffren Brittenham LLP, argued that a tax incentive may change where a production shoots but does not change who owns and profits from it. Producer Jeff Sagansky argued that streamers are now ordering 30-40% fewer hours of programming than they were a few years ago.

The group tried to include its ideas in a tax credit bill introduced in September but was rebuffed. It is now aiming for 2027. That tax incentive bill was co-authored by Rep. Laura Friedman, a former producer.

Streamers are pushing back. The Streaming Innovation Alliance, which includes Netflix and other streamers, called the fin-syn revival a package of blunt government mandates that would only dampen production and discourage creative risk-taking.

After the old rules were repealed, TV networks partially or fully integrated vertically to make and own more of their own shows. An FCC review also notes that diversity on television was at its peak in the late 1960s, before the financial interest and syndication rules arrived. For viewers, the fight comes down to who gets to make shows, who keeps them, and who gets paid when they travel.