Cable outlets can't exclude sports programming from DirecTV and Dish Network
- Philadelphia and San Diego first markets affected:
- 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."...
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