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DISH Threatens FCC Complaint Against Comcast Over Philly RSN

Says Comcast refused to negotiatie "in good faith"

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 7/30/2010 2:02:50 PM

DISH Network said Friday that Comcast has refused to negotiate "in good faith" to make its Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia available to DISH customers, and says it plans to complain to the FCC about it.

While sources familiar with the issue told B&C the two sides had had discussions, DISH says the company is inappropriately using its leverage over must-have sports programming to "drive onerous terms for its other programming properties."

DISH had requested access to the terrestrially delivered regional sports net after the FCC ruled in January that a distributor withholding a terrestrially delivered co-owned programming network from a satellite competitor was not de facto insulated from program access complaints.

"DISH Network believes that Comcast is in direct violation of the FCC's order to close the 'terrestrial loophole' within the program access rules, and plans to file a formal complaint," said DISH in a statement. "It is this type of anti-competitive conduct that reinforces our argument that the merger between Comcast and NBCU poses a grave threat to competition in the multichannel video market."

DISH had no comment on whether or not there had been talks, but a source close to the company said the "discussions" amounted to an exchange of letters, the upshot of which was that Comcast was not making the RSN available. 

"We remain willing to discuss carriage of Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia with Dish Network," said Comcast in a statement. "Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia has always been available to Comcast's local competitors, including Verizon and RCN, and our distribution policies have been upheld by both the FCC and the courts. Comcast makes every one of its other networks including nine national networks and 13 regional networks, available to all TV providers, including Dish."

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• WELL / WELL / Dish should get its house in order before complaining about others ! We have had them now for two years and this is what we get :
  1. Outages all the time when it rains that last for sometimes hours and mostly minutes for the satellite programmer to catch up and come on again.
  2. Charges against my credit card for trying to fix the problem after many complaints. After one year they sent a tech. to correct the problem as it was not grounded properly when installed and they charged me $15.00 for that when they said no charge since it was their fault.
  3. Their remotes when dead and they sent two new ones at a charge of $5.00 each.
  4. They charged me for erroneous programs for which I complained about and between these two it was a total of $29.95 !
  5. I complained over the phone to one man who said he knew what all these charges were and would get them reversed on my credit card in Aug.2010- Never happened / Then called again and another Lady said we owed it until I got her set straight and she said the charges of $29.00 would be reversed on my credit card in Set. Just got my credit card statement and no reversal.
  6. We are always out of TV when the wind or rain blows and we never get a credit for that
  SO THE ONLY THING WE CAN DO BECAUSE THE FCC AND FTC REFUSES TO SETTLE INDIVIDUAL COMPLAINTS IS TO FIND ANOTHER SERVER. WE WILL GO TO COMCAST AS THEY SEEM TO KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING.
  Tired of being lied to.

  
  Nancy & Marion NOlan - 9/11/2010 8:19:35 PM EDT
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