NFL Network takes aim at Comcast in latest skirmish
I used to be as interested in the NFL Network vs. Big Cable war as any TV sports scribe in the nation.
Not anymore.
But click below if you want to read a news release from the NFL Network about the latest salvo.
The most interesting nugget in it is the NFL Network's assertion that when Comcast was bidding for the Thursday-Saturday package the NFL ended up keeping for itself, it wanted to alter the long-standing provision by which games always are available on free, over-the-air TV in the markets of the teams involved.
I should look into this further. But I won't.
NFL Network today served Comcast with the required 10-day notice of its intent to file a formal complaint at the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) about Comcast’s discriminatory and anti-competitive treatment of NFL Network, as compared to national sports networks that Comcast owns.
After months of unproductive efforts by Network executives to make NFL Network and its popular football programming available on a fair basis to the 24.2 million subscriber homes served by Comcast systems, NFL Network has concluded that it has no choice but to bring a complaint under the Cable Act of 1992.
“Comcast has taken NFL Network away from millions of fans and placed it on a costly sports tier,” said NFL Network President and CEO Steve Bornstein. “We don’t believe that Comcast should charge consumers extra for our Network while making sports channels it owns available to all viewers on a less costly basis. After months of trying to get Comcast to negotiate fair treatment, we have been forced to turn to the FCC.”
The following are among the issues that will be posed by the complaint:
Comcast systems uniformly carry Comcast-owned sports networks on a widely-distributed basic tier, while relegating NFL Network to a special premium tier for which subscribers must pay substantial additional fees. This discriminatory treatment of NFL Network is a violation of the 1992 Cable Act. Comcast and NFL Network currently are in litigation in New York State over contract language that does not impact the violation that is covered by this complaint to the FCC.
Comcast’s discrimination causes serious anti-competitive and anti-consumer harms in the viewing, advertising and programming markets. Program diversity is also impaired which further harms consumers. All of these harms were serious concerns of Congress when it passed the Cable Act of 1992.
Comcast now also is retaliating against NFL Network because the NFL decided not to sell eight regular-season games to Comcast, in part because Comcast wanted an unacceptable condition in the deal that would have violated the NFL’s longstanding policy of free television coverage of games in the cities of the two competing teams.
Despite a much smaller universe of homes, NFL Network’s consistently higher average cable ratings and higher-rated individual event telecasts – with viewership which far exceeds anything on Comcast-owned national sports channels Versus and Golf Channel – belie Comcast’s claims that NFL Network, which reports 24-7 on America’s favorite sport, is “niche” programming that does not merit broader distribution.
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Comments (9)
Just a bunch of suits going to war and tripping over each other in the Quixotic quest for a bigger empire.
Yawn. What's the next move? Specter complaining about spygate again?
We haven't heard from Mr. Arlen Specter-Comcast in a while... time for him to start complaining again.
No matter who wins, we all lose.
Maybe the National Felons League can explain to me and the rest in my apartment complex why we can't get the Sunday Ticket with Cablevision. We can order the out-of-market MLB, NBA and NHL games. Isn't that a lack of programming diversity that harms us consumers.
As Tom Wicker said of players vs owners "Both sides are greedy and both may up destroying baseball".
Welcome Jim...but you're very late with that remark which is the crux of the whole argument although Neil doesn't think so...facts are Directv, mathematically speaking, is only available at best to half the country with the proper southwest exposure (leaving out the landlord argument which reduces it further)...yet the NFL went for their big big money (which has been translated into the package going from $99 to about $300 is the last couple of years), then for several years claimed cable was not willing to pay for it and now, when they try to argue how they want to make as many games available to fans as possible, give the absurd argument that Sunday Ticket was never meant to be widely available as it would "hurt" their network partners as if hearing on a Patriot Steeler game by Jim Nanz that 60 minutes will be available in its entirety at the end of game instead of hearing it from Ian Eagle during a meaningless Jet-Brown game we were forced to watch. After all it's the same CBS network.
This is one time, Jim Dolan and the rest of the cable networks are correct on which, again, is something Neil doesn't understand. Their most ardent fans have already been skimmed off by the Sunday Ticket package so there is no great outpouring of desire on the part of the remaining fans for the NFL Network.
NFL Network on cablevision, time warner, comcast...sure enough when they attach it to Sunday Ticket which MLB was smart enough to do with Extra Innings.
Just because it's the NFL doesn't mean they don't miscalculate...(BTW isn't it interesting, NFL Network has no game the last Sunday of the season to prevent a repeat of the fiasco last year if they happened to choose a very meaningful game..
Ok, I surrender...who is the guy in the picture?
Chris Collinsworth in his playing days as a Pro-Bowl WR for the Cincinnati Bengals.
Big Jeff: Why does Comcast carry Versus and Golf channel not on a sports tier?
Collingsworth.....duh
Here's an item with more on Comcast Versus and Golf Channel http://blogs.mediapost.com/tv_watch/?p=928