Verizon Asks FCC for Overdue Action Now on Cablevision Program Access Complaint
The FCC is overdue to act on a program access complaint by Verizon against Cablevision, the telco said. It said the agency was supposed to have acted at least three months ago on Verizon’s request for access to the two HD versions of the cable operator’s New York area regional sports networks. A deadline to act in five months, which the FCC created 13 years ago in carrying out the 1992 Cable Act, “has long since passed,” Verizon Deputy General Counsel Michael Glover wrote Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake on Wednesday. Commission and industry officials had expected final action on complaints against Cablevision by Verizon and AT&T to be taken by now (CD June 29 p6).
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No orders on any program access cases pending at the FCC are circulating, and no decisions on any by the bureau seem imminent, agency officials watching the cases said Wednesday. The cases include separate complaints by Verizon and AT&T against Cablevision and Madison Square Garden, which was spun off from the cable operator, over lack of access to the HD versions of the MSG and MSG+ channels. Verizon’s complaint could be handled by the bureau, on its own authority, an executive of the telco said. Commissioners could vote to act, too, the executive said. A bureau spokeswoman declined to comment.
An AT&T spokesman called its complaint against Cablevision “long overdue” for action by the FCC, too. “We hope the commission will move quickly to ensure that all consumers enjoy the benefits of competition,” he added. Cablevision noted that New York is the most competitive market for telecom services in the U.S. “Verizon, the nation’s second largest phone company, should be expected to compete based on its products, and not on a regulatory bailout,” a Cablevision spokeswoman said.
Discovery and further briefing on Verizon v. Cablevision by commission staff ended Oct. 22, Glover wrote. Verizon’s complaint was made in July 2009, he said. It was supplemented, under a program access order applying to any case, on June 28, 2010, Glover wrote. After that, commission and industry officials expected quick action on the complaints, but it didn’t come.
An FCC order last year allowed the commission to consider complaints over lack of access to cable operator-affiliated channels, even when they're not distributed by satellite. Satellite-delivered channels had been exempt from program access rules. Last year’s order rejected “Cablevision’s primary defense in the Verizon complaint -- namely that withholding of terrestrially-delivered programming cannot run afoul of Section 628(b)” of the Cable Act, Glover wrote. Verizon had said it wanted its case settled before the New York Islanders’ and Rangers’ regular-season hockey games, carried on MSG, began last fall (CD Aug 4 p6). The MSG networks also carry games of the NBA’s New York Knicks. Madison Square Garden owns the Rangers and Knicks, and that company and Cablevision are controlled by the founding Dolan family.
"As we approach the latter part of the NBA and NHL seasons and the Knicks, Rangers and Sabres contend for the playoffs,” subscribers to Verizon’s FiOS pay-TV service can’t watch their games, Glover wrote. The Buffalo Sabres hockey team is also carried on MSG. “Nearly two full seasons of NBA and NHL games have passed since Verizon filed this case,” and “further delay only rewards Cablevision for its bad acts,” he continued. The cable operator continues to refuse to sell Verizon access to MSG and MSG+ in HD “on any terms,” Glover said. “There is nothing left to do but for the Commission to decide this case.”