New York TWC Customers To Get Free NFL Preview

By Ben Grossman -- Broadcasting & Cable, 12/18/2006 7:47:00 PM

The National Football League on Monday accepted Time Warner Cable’s offer to put a free preview of the NFL Network on its digital basic tier in the New York area Dec. 24-30.

The preview would allow New York and New Jersey subscribers to see a Rutgers University post-season college football game that the NFL has the exclusive rights to show.

"In light of the fact that 75% of Time Warner’s New York-area customers subscribe to the digital basic tier, we have concluded that its offer represented the quickest and best way to bring Rutgers’ appearance in the Texas Bowl to Time Warner subscribers and to make the freeview a reality," the NFL said in a statement.

Last week, after the NFL Network offered to provide a free preview of its network Dec. 24-30, TWC had said it would either make only the Dec. 28 Rutgers game available to all its customers, or make the entire week-long preview available to digital customers only.

But in a letter dated Dec.14 to Time Warner Cable chairman and CEO Glenn Britt, NFL Network (NFLN) chief Steve Bornstein said neither of the two options TWC proposed "satisfy both our goals for the freeview."

The statement went on to say the NFL has informed TWC it "would extend this same freeview to subscribers of Time Warner in affected regions in Kansas and Texas (both states in which state universities are participating in bowl games that NFL Network will telecast) on similar penetration terms. However, the New York resolution is not tied to the additional freeview offer in Texas and Kansas."

NFLN and TWC are still in a standoff over carriage after the network began carrying live NFL games this season.