The Federal Communications Commission ordered Time Warner Cable on Thursday to restore the NFL Network channel to its systems in North Texas and elsewhere that were formerly operated by Comcast Corp.
A dispute over pricing took the channel off Time Warner Cable systems Tuesday after the company took over control of the former Comcast systems. NFL Enterprises LLC, operator of the NFL network, appealed to the FCC, saying Time Warner Cable hadn’t given 30 days’ notice as required in FCC rules.
“At this stage of the proceedings, we are unable to issue a final decision on the NFL’s petition,” the commission said in its order. “Based on the current state of the record, however, we conclude that the NFL is entitled to appropriate interim relief.”
It ordered Time Warner Cable to turn the NFL Network back on until the FCC rules on the merits of the NFL’s petition.
“In particular, we conclude that the public interest strongly weighs in favor of such interim relief and that the harms to the NFL and Time Warner customers of foregoing this relief outweigh any harm caused to Time Warner,” the FCC said.
“We also conclude, that in light of the balance of the equities here, the NFL has established a sufficient prospect of success on the merits to justify this relief,” it said.
Time Warner Cable is currently reviewing the FCC's order, said company spokesman Gary Underwood. “This order was issued without offering us the opportunity to respond to the NFL Network’s allegations. We believe the FCC’s decision is wrong and we are considering our options,” he said.
The two sides have launched public-relations campaigns, with the NFL Network castigating Time Warner for cutting off the service and Time Warner launching a Web site, www.nflgetreal.com, telling its side. NFL Network has said Time Warner Cable cut off the channel, while the cable company has said that NFL Network stopped delivery a signal.
Time Warner Cable wants to put the NFL Network on a special sports tier, a proposal that it says the NFL Network opposes.
“We’re concerned that the NFL’s rising costs make it unaffordable,” Time Warner Cable says on its site. “They cannot control their costs and they stick fans with the tab. They even want non-fans to pay for NFL Network.”
In addition, “In markets that already have the NFL Network, they are asking for a 350 percent increase for adding eight regular season games — games that were available to our customers last year — out of 267. This is a poor value proposition – even for fans. The NFL Network is telling fans that they will miss these games but they are wrong — our customers will not miss ANY of the home team’s games,” the company’s Web site added.
Time Warner Cable took over all of Comcast’s North Texas systems, including Dallas, Garland, Plano, Arlington, Mesquite and many others, on Aug. 1. The two companies had agreed to a swap of franchises across the country as they were dividing up properties owned by bankrupt Adelphia Communications Corp.
Time Warner Cable ordered restore the NFL Network
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