Members of Senate and House Urge FCC to End Big Cable Stalemate

MEMBERS OF SENATE AND HOUSE URGE FCC TO END CABLE STALEMATE
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Fourteen more members of the House of Representatives (all Democrats except one) have asked FCC Chairman Kevin Martin to consider adopting a "dispute-resolution mechanism" for ending the "stalemate" between Comcast and Time Warner and the NFL over carriage of the NFL Network. In a letter to the chairman, they complain that "vertically integrated multichannel video program distributors (MVPDs) are refusing to carry the NFL Network and other popular independently owned programming on a broadly distributed tier of service."
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6514699.html?rssid=193

* NFL Pitches Baseball-Style Arbitration
Even as a group of legislators was asking FCC Chairman Kevin Martin to impose some kind of arbitration mechanism on cable program carriage disputes--citing The NFL Network and cable operators Comcast and Time Warner specifically--NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell was proposing the same thing to Time Warner Chairman Glenn Britt. Britt responded that the company wasn't interested, though he had some suggestions of his own.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6514726.html?rssid=193