League Makes New Offer to Time Warner to Settle NFL Network Dispute
The NFL made a new offer to Time Warner today in an effort, the league said, to resolve its dispute with the cable television carrier before the Dec. 29 game between the New England Patriots and New York Giants that is to be carried on the NFL Network.
The league has remained embroiled in longstanding disputes with Time Warner and other large cable companies, including Comcast, over pricing and distribution of the NFL Network, the league-owned television channel that is in only about 35 million U.S. households and carries an eight-game package of regular season games on Thursday and Saturday nights. The stalemate with the cable carriers has received increased attention recently because the NFL Network is scheduled to carry the Patriots-Giants game, in which the Patriots might be trying to complete an unbeaten regular season.
The league's new offer to Time Warner comes a day after Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) sent a letter Wednesday to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell threatening to reconsider the sport's exemption from federal antitrust laws if deals are not struck with the cable companies to make the games carried by the league-owned TV channel available to more viewers.
Goodell wrote in a letter today to Glenn A. Britt, the president and chief executive officer of Time Warner Cable, that the league is willing to have the dispute resolved by binding "baseball-style" arbitration. Each side would submit a final offer to an arbitrator regarding pricing and distribution of the NFL Network, and the arbitrator would choose one proposal or the other. Because the arbitration process could be lengthy, Goodell wrote, the league would allow Time Warner to distribute the NFL Network to all its customers immediately if the cable carrier agrees to submit the dispute to arbitration. The NFL's offer will remain open until Dec. 28, Goodell wrote.
"The objective is to have a neutral third party determine the price and tier for NFL Network distribution on Time Warner systems, based on the fair market value of the NFL Network program service," Goodell wrote. "... We do not view this proposal as a way to 'force' NFL Network carriage 'on our terms.' We view it as a way to make sure that your customers can view our programming on fair terms--which the arbitrator could decide are those proposed by us, or those that Time Warner proposes. Either way, however, consumers--including our fans--will be the winners."
It was not immediately known if Time Warner would agree to the proposal.
By Mark Maske |
December 20, 2007; 2:48 PM ET
| Category:
Television
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Posted by: pack4life | December 20, 2007 6:56 PM
Consumers (fans) were the LOSERS the moment the NFL created the NFL network; now, games that should have national coverage and appeal can only be gotten if you have high end digital cable or satellite; many fans have neither. I watch almost every Redskins game (including preseason); I miss about one game, every three years, for family reasons. I've missed one EACH year the past two years because of the NFL network. Many other fans share the same situation; oh, that's a "smooth move", alright!
NFL Network should DIE. Besides, it certainly seems like the NFL competing against it's biggest customers (Fox, NBC, ESPN, CBS, and ABC over various years) has to be bad for revenue (especially when the current contracts expire), partnering relations, and monopolisticly abusive.
Posted by: Bill | December 22, 2007 5:13 AM
Digital Cable boxes can allow customers to pay for the program they are watching
This would mean they can charge a standard fee for cable service like $20 a month then you would pay for each program you watch. Say $1 per channel. The cable companies would make even more on some customers that watch a lot of channels and less on customers that don't. The best part is they wouldn't be paying for channels they don't watch. Channels that do not get enough vewiers would be dropped rather than be subsidized by everyone else. They get on these cable systems by internal politics not customer demand anyway. That would be the fairest way to do this and digital technology allows it.
Posted by: JET | December 24, 2007 12:50 PM
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pretty smooth move by goodell