Cable outlets can't exclude sports programming from DirecTV and Dish Network

• Philadelphia and San Diego first markets affected:

"The FCC is closing a loophole that has allowed cable companies to keep their regional sports and other programming off satellite TV.

• The FCC vote taken Wednesday should prevent cable companies from excluding satellite companies Dish Network and DirecTV from carrying
• cable-company owned sports programming in
• Philadelphia and San Diego.
• It also sets up a process by which satellite companies can appeal to the FCC for help in similar situations.

Dish Network...a 14 million-subscriber satellite broadcaster based in Colorado, called the FCC’s vote a double victory for consumers.

• “First, sports fans in Philadelphia and San Diego will soon have a choice of pay-TV providers; second, consumers can no longer be held hostage during a contract dispute between cable programmers and video distributors,” the company said in a statement.

The largest satellite broadcaster, El Segundo-based DirecTV, is majority owned by John Malone and other investors in his Liberty Media Corp. It has 18 million subscribers.

• Under 18-year-old rules, programming owners could refuse to let the satellite companies carry regional channels if they were delivered exclusively by cable — what became known as the “terrestrial loophole.”

In Philadelphia, that meant local cable giant Comcast Corp. could sell its local Comcast Sportsnet programming — which includes game coverage of Philadelphia pro hockey and basketball franchises, plus other sports — to be carried by Verizon’s Fios TV in the area;

• but Comcast kept Dish and DirecTV from carrying the channels."...

BizJournals, Los Angeles, 1/21/10, "Cable Companies Can't shut out Dish Network, DirecTV," by Greg Avery of Denver Business Journal, via RadioDailyNews

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