FCC Bureau: Tennis Should Get Wider Comcast Carriage, Operator Should Be Fined

The Federal Communications Commission's Enforcement Bureau has told an administrative law judge that he should mandate Tennis Channel carriage on a "widely viewed" -- though not necessarily most widely viewed -- Comcast tier and fine the cable operator the maximum for that program carriage rule violation.

The bureau agreed with Comcast that the burden of proof it on Tennis Channel, but said that issue is basically moot since Tennis has essentially met that burden. It also agreed that Tennis Channel's request to be put on the most-widely viewed tier, the analog tier, were excessive and would require deletion of other channels. The bureau said it believes the Tennis Channel has demonstrated that Comcast discriminated against the channel on the basis of affiliation, or in this case nonaffiliation, which prevented the channel from competing fairly with similar sports channels in which Comcast had a financial interest. The bureau recommends that the judge force Comcast to carry the channel "across Comcast's cable systems nationwide on a broadly distributed tier" within the next 30 days and at a price on par with Golf Channel or Versus, in which Comcast has a financial interest. The FCC's program access rules prevent cable operators from favoring co-owned channels over similar, non-affiliated channels.