AT&T Goes After Cablevision Content
Complains to FCC About Inability to Secure Sports Nets
By Ted Hearn -- Multichannel News, 6/24/2007 8:00:00 PM
In this story:
'REPEAT OFFENDERS'
RULES COULD EXPIRE
Washington — AT&T is the latest multichannel-video provider to complain about Cablevision Systems, accusing the cable operator and its Rainbow Media Holdings subsidiary of illegally withholding three regional sports networks that carry professional basketball and ice-hockey contests.
AT&T filed with the Federal Communications Commission, which has program-access rules that generally bar cable operators from withholding satellite-delivered programming from pay TV rivals.
In the complaint, AT&T accused Cablevision of program-access recidivism by refusing once again to license “must-have” sports-programming networks in an effort to raise entry barriers to new pay TV rivals.
'REPEAT OFFENDERS'
“Cablevision and Rainbow are infamous repeat offenders of the program-access rules, which deserve quickly to receive every available sanction,” AT&T's complaint said.
Rainbow spokesman Whit Clay said that his company had concerns about AT&T's ability to honor contract terms and conditions.
“We have reached programming agreements with a broad range of distributors, including DirecTV, EchoStar [Communications], Verizon [Communications], RCN and even AT&T itself, but have outstanding questions regarding AT&T's violation of prior distribution agreements and about certain aspects of AT&T's technology and the protection of our programming,” Clay said.
AT&T told the FCC it had been unable to obtain access to FSN New York, Madison Square Garden Network and FSN New England, hindering its ability to roll out its U-verse TV Internet-Protocol TV service in portions of Hartford, New Haven and Stamford, Conn.
The Rainbow networks, according to AT&T, have the rights to televise New York Knicks and Boston Celtics National Basketball Association games and New York Islanders, New York Rangers and New Jersey Devils National Hockey League games.
AT&T said Cablevision refused to license the sports programming because AT&T did not have a cable franchise in Connecticut. AT&T said that under Connecticut law, it didn't need a franchise to offer U-verse TV.
In March 2006, Verizon filed an FCC complaint against Rainbow over access to the same regional sports networks. The complaint was withdrawn eight months later, when the two sides were close to announcing a comprehensive carriage deal.
The program-access rules were put in place by Congress in 1992 in an effort to ensure that newly emerging satellite-TV providers could distribute programming controlled by cable operators.
RULES COULD EXPIRE
The ban on exclusive cable contracts was extended for five years in 2002. The FCC has until Oct. 5 to decide whether to adopt a second extension. FCC chairman Kevin Martin has signaled his support for an extension.
Comcast and others in the cable industry have urged the FCC to let the rules expire, arguing that market conditions have changed dramatically over the past 15 years, a period when satellite TV providers rose from zero customers to 30 million.
“If there was justification for the exclusivity prohibition in 1992, that justification is now long gone,” Comcast said in a June 13 FCC filing.
Last year, the FCC imposed conditions on the transaction in which Comcast and Time Warner Cable jointly acquired the assets of bankrupt multiple-systems operator Adelphia Communications Corp.
For the next six years, neither cable company may withhold an affiliated regional sports network, regardless of the means of delivery.
The FCC, however, did grandfather Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia.
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