NFL Kicks Dirt At Comcast, Other Cable Operators

NFL KICKS DIRT AT COMCAST, OTHER CABLE OPERATORS
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Ted Hearn]
The National Football League, which rakes in $3.7 billion a year in TV revenue alone, is accusing the cable industry of favoring channels it owns and discriminating against unaffiliated channels such as the NFL Network through less favorable economic terms and channel positioning. “[Cable operators] commonly disadvantage independent services by forcing them to accept inferior compensation or channel placement ­ or both,” the NFL Network told the Federal Communications Commission in a Sept. 11 filing related to cable system carriage of independently owned program networks. The NFL filing didn't mention that it lost a tier-placement law suit to Comcast and that it won't license “NFL Sunday Ticket" to Comcast or any other U.S. cable operator. DirecTV, a satellite pay-TV provider, has exclusive rights to Sunday Ticket. The attack on Comcast comes as the FCC considers revising rules that ban cable operators from discriminating against a cable network based on the network’s ownership. The NFL Network urged the FCC to adopt rules requiring Comcast to “bargain in good faith,” as it must when dealing with local TV stations. The FCC, the NFL Network added, would need to back up breakdowns in good faith with binding arbitration initiated by the programmer.
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6478207.html