NFL Network vs. Cable holdouts - The 8 game dilemma. - Page 51  

I wonder if the NFLN should have taken the "we'll put your games on PPV" offer and make the cost 2.3 cents for the whole day (which is about what $0.70/month works out to be) and make the PPV event be the 24 hours containing the game. Maybe they were concerned that the percentage of "takers" would be too small, or the cost to notify subscribers would be too large.

Bingo. For this reason (and many others), we need a level playing field mandate by the FCC. No forced bundling from content providers, no preferential treatment from channel owners.

Whatever you might think of the value of the NFL Network, this case is just another example of what's wrong with cable (and the disproportionate cost of TV sports in particular).

Great article, thanks for posting.

Here is a statement from Cablevision on the topic.

"The NFL blacks out about 10 games every week in the New York market, and now they are trying to manufacture an outcry over seven out-of-town games all year, for which they are demanding payments totaling more than $25 million dollars from Cablevision customers. The NFL is not fooling New York football fans, who know they will continue to see every Giants, Jets and playoff game on Cablevision."

http://weblogs.newsday.com/sports/wa...l_here_is.html

Lobbyists Circulate Draft Letter to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin
By Ted Hearn -- Multichannel News, 12/10/2007 1:45:00 PM

Washington - The NFL Network is trying to get U.S. legislators to pressure the Federal Communications Commission into forcing Comcast and Time Warner into negotiating their differences with the league-owned pay-TV channel.

NFL Network lobbyists have circulated to legislators for their signature a draft letter to FCC chairman Kevin Martin stating that the agency should impose mandatory arbitration because the cable companies have little incentive to carry popular programming they don't own.

This market failure has imposed substantial burdens on consumers, who are unable to access popular programming, including games of their favorite sports teams, the Dec. 6 draft letter said, though without referring to Comcast and Time Warner by name.

Martin already supports the NFL Network. The letter, though addressed to Martin, is more likely aimed at other FCC officials whose support has not been locked up.

We have been contacted by several congressional offices that have been inundated with complaints about big cable companies not carrying NFL Network, said NFL spokesman Seth Palansky. We have provided those congressional offices with language with which to contact the FCC to urge for mandatory arbitration which could help get NFL Network wider distribution.

Comcast carries the NFL Network on a sports tier seen in about 1 million homes. Time Warner refuses to carry the network on expanded basic, claiming the 70-cent per month, per subscriber license fee is excessive. Time Warner has offered to carry the NFL Network on a sports tier or an a la carte basis, or on a pay per game basis, in which all of the revenue would go to the NFL.

The NFL Network has accused the cable giants of denying consumers access to most popular programming on cable TV.

A copy of the draft letter was obtained Monday by Multichannel News.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) last Wednesday sent a letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and National Cable & Telecommunications Association president Kyle McSlarrow, urging compromise.

Kerry said he was concerned that millions of cable consumers would be unable to see on TV the New England Patriots (13-0) final regular season game on Dec. 29 against the New York Giants, because the NFL Network has exclusive television rights. No NFL team has gone undefeated for an entire regular season since the 1972 Miami Dolphins.

In light of the unique circumstances surrounding the 2007 New England Patriots, I urge you to reach an agreement as soon as possible, so that football fans across the country are not prevented from viewing what could be an historic sporting event, Kerry said in one-page letter.

In the draft letter, the NFL Network said forced arbitration would not be breaking new ground. It referred, for example, to the FCC's decision in 2006 to pressure Comcast to carry Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN), a regional sports network and the pay-TV home of the Washington Nationals baseball team.

We note with interest that the [FCC] previously adopted a dispute resolution mechanism to address a similar stalemate between regional sports networks and vertically integrated MVPDs, and this approach benefited consumers right here in the Washington, D.C. market, the letter said.

But the letter failed to mention that Comcast paid for the MASN contract by immediately raising monthly cable rates by $2 for 1.6 million customers in the Washington-Baltimore corridor.

We urge the [FCC] to consider using this same approach to resolve disputes involving other types of independently owned programming where similar vertical integration may impede agreement, the draft letter said. This proposal would not pick winners or losers, but instead creates a mechanism to address a market failure that has prevented consumers from having access to popular programming including the NFL Network, about which our constituents have expressed much concern.

http://www.multichannel.com/index.as...leID=CA6511245

What a joke...

Don't our lawmakers have something more important to do than play Mommy to two large, rich industries?

No s...

Agree 100%. No where in the constitution does it say anything about our right to watch cable tv.

Just another example of how moronic the people in Washington are.

By the way, Jerry Jones and Roger were in Texas yesterday testifying before a committee of the Texas legislature

LOL! Dude, that's all they have time to do. The only people who get lawmakers' attention are large industries or special interest groups who hire high-powered and high-priced lobbying firms to get them that access. The "little guy", the ordinary tax-paying American, has virtually no real access to the Congress or the President and his voice is virtually never heard in the Halls of Power.

If the FCC is going to mediate adding NFLN to TWC & Comcast, shouldn't they also address the shady exclusivity arrangement that the NFL has with DirecTV on Sunday Ticket?

That's something I've never understood. No matter how much money DirecTV is willing to pay for an "exclusive" for Sunday Ticket, it would have to pale in comparison to how much the NFL could get if they allowed every carrier to buy the package. While it may be a great marketing tool for D*, it can't possibly benefit the NFL financially as much as getting money from everyone. Makes no sense to me.

The value of the CBS and FOX NFL packages would drop if every provider had access to Sunday Ticket. If everyone had access to Sunday Ticket there would be less eyeballs on the local stations showing the games and that is something that the local stations and the networks will not let happen quietly.

I think that could be open to debate. The majority of the population is a fan of the team that is considered local to that area. By following the same blackout rules that DirecTV uses today (game not carried on ST if shown locally) and giving local commercial inserts on all games, advertising revenues could actually grow. The local fans are still going to watch their local team, displaced fans or people wanting to watch a different game would see the local insert commercials.

Any revenue from local spots on a cable version of Sunday Ticket would go to the cable company, unless your suggesting that the cable company run the local ads and give that revenue to the local CBS and FOX stations. The local stations get something like 6 or 7 minutes of local ad time per game which they would not want to give up. The local ad time is very valuable even though it is usually at the least attractive times such as halftime, before kickoff, and after the game with usually only one break being during the game.

Having Sunday Ticket available to everyone would also diminish the value of the doubleheader to the networks as there would not be as much emphasis on the late 4:15 game which goes to almost all of the country.

Why not? It would give them a chance to stop giving the oil companies a hand job.

I'm just glad I have D*. Cheaper than cable and 2x as good.

You mean the pizza pan, overly compressed, maybe locals, limited connections, buy-every-new-version-box service?

While I agree this issue should be beneath the government's radar, invoking the constitution every time you don't like an internet comment is just silly. The constitution does not cover issues like this, the Code and the FCC do.

As I mentioned before in another thread, it was entirely the NFL's decision to risk viewers' "access [to] popular programming, including games of their favorite sports teams." The eight games in question could have been sold to one or more existing networks. Instead, the NFL chose to use them in an attempt to turn a "niche" network into a "basic" channel, and the cable companies saw right through that effort.

Also, as I recall, the government was asked to get involved in the dispute between Sinclair Broadcasting and Mediacom -- which deprived many cable viewers of much more broad-based programming than NFL Network offers -- but they declined.

Woopty-frikin-do...

Of course if they really wanted to give fans access they'd sell the games to an over-the-air network.

And by that, I mean a broadcaster, not a blimp.

http://iwantnflnetwork.com/

It appears that the cease and desist order did nothing to alter the "make the switch" portion of their website.

I used to think like that. But one day my cable bill shot up without notice and I was still getting the same crappy limited number of HD channels. I called D* and my only regret is that I didn't make the switch sooner.

The primary markets do get the games on a local channel, outside of that, find a provider that offers NFLN

If you don't like how the cable companies are treating you, then switch or give up watching the NFL. If only 8 games a year are not available for viewing, so what. I used to be a big time NFL fan. It seems most also-ran teams just mail it in. I find College football far more interesting.

Ohio State could be Miami. That would be an interesting game. I would be angry if I couldn't see that one.

If you're a die hard football fan, you would have dumped cable and gotten D* a long time before this. It's not like it is something that is going to sneak up on ootball fans.

Let the market work. If cable is too stubborn to give nfl network to it's subscribers, they have other options.

That is the whole issue. If cable could just give NFL Network to its subscribers they would. But someone has to pay for it! It's not going to be the NFL, who obviously are unable to make the channel advertiser supported (which should be a big indicator of its actual popularity among the public). It is not cable who is being stubborn here. They are more than willing to carry the channel and let willing customers pay for it. That sounds like a completely reasonable compromise between not carrying it at all vs "giving" it to everyone. Customers paying for what they want - that is the market working!

No cable channel is fully ad supported.

When NFL Network was removed from my basic cable, I picked up the sports subscription so I would continue to get it. What's the problem? I pay $4.99 a month more in order to receive NFLN along with a few other sports channels. My neighbor, who is not an NFL fan, doesn't pay and doesn't get the channel. Neither of us in unhappy.

Of course, the NFL can't sell ads on their net claiming my neighbor as a sub, but since he isn't, it's all a bit more honest this way.

I know this is OT, but can someone explain to me why we only get two or three games (at 1pm and 415pm eastern) depending on whether the local team is at home, instead of three or four?

I've never understood why the late game is a single but the early is not.