TWC Avoids Access Complaint Over RSN as Other MVPDs Seek Continued Adelphia Curbs
Time Warner Cable avoided a program access complaint by Hawaii’s largest telco (CD Aug 11 p6), because the two sides agreed to a distribution deal. The cable operator let Hawaiian Telcom distribute a regional sports network, a spokesman for the telco told us. Other multichannel video providers meanwhile asked the FCC to continue or at least look to continue RSN conditions expiring next year. The agency placed the curbs on Time Warner Cable and Comcast in 2006 as part of letting them buy Adelphia Communications.
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Hawaiian Telcom got two deals with Time Warner Cable, a spokesman for the first company said Monday. One lets the telco distribute all programming from the cable operator’s Hawaii RSN. Hawaiian Telcom had threatened to file a program access complaint against Time Warner Cable, the state’s largest MVPD, if it didn’t let it carry all the channel’s programming. Time Warner Cable had told the telco it might let it carry only some. A Time Warner Cable spokeswoman confirmed the company agreed to let Hawaiian Telcom carry its network.
The telco doesn’t plan to file a program access complaint against the cable operator, its spokesman said. The telco also got a pay-per-view deal for its subscribers to buy in a package or individually certain games played by University of Hawaii teams, he said. Hawaiian Telcom’s video service started July 1, he said. Time Warner Cable didn’t file comments in docket 11-128 on the Media Bureau’s public notice (CD July 27 p8) on whether it should continue the RSN conditions on that operator and Comcast (http://xrl.us/bmc7yy).
All types of MVPDs asked the commission either to continue those curbs or examine doing so. Among them were AT&T, with program access complaints pending against Cablevision and Cox Communications, as well as both DBS companies and the American Cable Association. Many of the MVPDs said increasing RSN fees is driving up cable rates. Cablevision and Comcast said there’s no need for continued RSN conditions and that the market for video programming is competitive.
The FCC shouldn’t let itself be “lulled” by cable industry arguments that RSN “safeguards,” aren’t needed any longer, DirecTV said. It and other MVPDs pointed to the popularity of such programming, saying many pay-TV subscribers consider their local sports teams to be must-see content. “The largest cable operators, moreover, still have every incentive to withhold, or raise the price of, this critical programming,” the DBS company said: “Although cable as a whole has lost national market share, the largest operators have been able to maintain their dominant regional position” through buying additional systems in a region. Dish Network said RSNs owned by cable operators “continue to find ways to leverage their position to the disadvantage” of independent MVPDs. “Vertically integrated cable operators withhold key products like RSNs in order to undermine DBS competition,” the company said.
AT&T and Verizon noted their complaints against RSNs owned by Madison Square Garden, which used to be part of Cablevision, have been pending for several years at the commission. Section 628 of the Communications Act and FCC rules “plainly entitle AT&T to the RSN access it seeks,” yet “continued delay in enforcing AT&T’s rights has inhibited its ability to offer subscribers (in particular the large number of subscribers that will not consider switching to an alternative that does not include their favorite sports teams in HD) a viable, competitive alternative,” the telco said. “To expedite resolution of disputes over access to RSN programming, the Commission should consider extending the RSN access conditions adopted in the Adelphia Order not only temporally but also to all RSNs vertically affiliated with a cable operator or other multichannel video programming distributor.” Verizon sought “prompt” action on its complaint: “During this time Cablevision has been able to exploit its unfair competitive advantage."
There’s no longer a “viable” case to have a “special set of rules” for RSNs, and may never have been, Cablevision said. That’s because consumers have “meaningful choice of viable video service providers,” the company said. It cited AT&T and Verizon’s sales of pay TV. “In a mature competitive marketplace, no single programming service -- including an RSN -- can make or break the competitive viability (or lack therefore) of an MVPD” in any market, the company added.
The market for RSN programming is “intensely competitive,” Comcast said. Unaffiliated MVPDs “have access to all NBCUniversal networks, including NBCUniversal’s RSNs, as well as virtually every other RSN in the marketplace,” the cable operator said. “On the distribution side, due to strong competitive pressures, Comcast carries scores of unaffiliated RSNs on its cable systems.” It asked the agency to find the RSN market “is extremely competitive and that anachronistic regulations should be eliminated.”