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Court rules against Comcast, Cablevision on new FCC program access rules
Comcast and Cablevision's quest to keep the HD feeds of the networks they own off of satellite and telco services was again dealt a loss Friday when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld new FCC rules requiring them to share. Neither found that pleasing, with Comcast citing the continued exclusivity of NFL Sunday Ticket and NASCAR Hot Pass to DirecTV, while Cablevision whined about its latest spat with ABC. This might not be the end of things however, as the court voted the FCC could later rescind the rule if it decides it "is no longer timely," and it will likely play a part in the ongoing discussions over Comcast's proposed purchase of NBC.
DirecTV exclusive Sunday Ticket is 'in the consumers' best interest'
You love the NFL's exclusive DirecTV deal for Sunday Ticket right? New York Giants chairman and co-owner Steve Tisch says you do, as it is "really in the consumers' best interest." We're suspecting the bang caused by millions of football lovers who can't / won't switch to the satellite service's heads exploding was muffled by all the cash stuffed in his ears as he continued, praising the "successful model" of the NFL Network channel and its quest for wider distribution. As long as the money keeps flowing and, as he claims, TV ratings are hitting record highs, don't expect anything to change any time soon.
Is the NFL Sunday Ticket coming to Verizon FiOS?
Chalk this one up as a total rumor, but you can imagine our surprise today when we saw all of these NFL Sunday Ticket channels show up on our CableCARD equipped Windows 7 Media Center connected to Verizon's FiOS. Unfortunately the channels didn't actually tune in when we selected 'em and this could very well be another case of bad guide data, but no way we could pass up the chance to share this one.**UPDATE** As expected, this was confirmed by the NFL as just a glitch in the guide data, but it was fun to dream even if it was only for a day.
The NFL and DirecTV extend exclusive Sunday Ticket through 2014
Bad news for NFL fans that can't see the southwestern sky, DirecTV and the NFL have once again extended the exclusive pay-per-view Sunday Ticket contract, and this time through 2014. The rumored 4 billion dollar deal includes a few other nuggets like broadband access for Sunday Ticket subscribers who also subscribe to the Superfan package (an additional $99 fee) in 2012 -- although we're not sure how it differs from today's services. The other thing worth mentioning in the deal is that also starting around 2010, the Redzone channel will no longer be exclusive to the Superfan package, and will in fact be offered to other carriers with no strings attached to the leagues other cable channel, The NFL Network.
DirecTV spent $640,000 lobbying on DTV transition, sports programming in Q3
Admit it -- you're curious as to how DirecTV plans on spending / investing that $363 million in pure, sweet net profit that it just raked in, aren't you? If Q3 is any indication, it'll spend at least a snippet of it lobbying Congress. A rather vague report from the AP indicates that the satcaster spent $640,000 last quarter lobbying "on the digital television transition, sports programming, taxes and other issues." Unfortunately, the details about what exactly it was lobbying for on those issues were casually left out, so we suppose it's up to our imaginations to figure out the rest. Or, you know, wait until something decisive goes down.[Image courtesy of DayLife]
