Small N.Y. Op In Dispute With Lifetime
CableCom Said Programmer Pulled Signal Over Package Deal
By Ted Hearn -- Multichannel News, 5/20/2008 5:27:00 AM
New Orleans -- A small cable operator in upstate New York says Lifetime Television pulled its signal last week after the operator refused to enter a package deal that required analog tier carriage of Lifetime Movie Network as the basis for continued access to Lifetime.
CableCom of Willsboro, supported by the American Cable Association, has taken its concerns directly to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin. ACA sent Martin a letter last Friday (but released Monday) in which the trade group accused a more powerful Lifetime of mistreating a small pay-TV distributor.
"The summary withdrawal of Lifetime from CableCom and its customers shows yet another example of abuse of market power by a media conglomerate-controlled programmer, and complete disregard of the interests of rural cable operators and to consumers," ACA president Matt Polka said in the May 16 letter.
Lifetime, cable's leading women's targeted network, is jointly owned by the Hearst Corp. and The Walt Disney Co.
"Cable Communications of Willsboro has been a valued Lifetime and Lifetime Movie Network distributor for many years," said Lifetime spokesman Gary Morgenstein in a statement. "We are disappointed that the company has chosen not to enter into an agreement for continued carriage of the services and, as always, we are happy to discuss an agreement for carriage of one or more services at any time."
CableCom of Willsboro, according to ACA, offers video programming and broadband service to about 1,100 subscribers in Willsboro and Essex, N.Y., near Lake Champlain.
The cable company is run by Herb Longware, whose parents built the system more than two decades ago, according to ACA.
Under Martin, the FCC is considering taking steps to regulate the wholesale cable programming acquisition market. At one time, Martin appeared to favor a system in which programmers would have to make each channel available on an a la carte basis.
More recently, Martin floated a proposal that would allow cable operators to exclude from expanded basic any cable channel that demanded at least 75 cents per month, per subscriber.
Martin also has the FCC looking at the bundling practices of TV stations that negotiate for cable carriage under their retransmission consent rights in federal law.
In the letter, ACA told Martin that Lifetime offered CableCom a "to take it or leave it to tying arrangement" that required the cable operator to remove Lifetime Movie Network from a digital tier and place it on the analog basic tier, which all subscribers need to purchase.
ACA complained that Lifetime's demand would have forced CableCom to drop programming or devote less bandwidth to high-speed Internet access service.
CableCom lost access to Lifetime on May 12 after it refused to make the tier switch. ACA's letter didn't say whether CableCom lost access to Lifetime Movie Network.
"We reiterate here what we demonstrate in detail on the record: For small cable operators, wholesale programming and retransmission consent transactions are rife with `take it or leave it' tying and bundling arrangements and price discrimination," Polka's letter said.
Polka maintained that the details of CableCom-Lifetime dispute contradicted claims to the FCC by media giants that they are flexible in the pricing and packaging of their services on a wholesale basis.
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