Re: Cable Rules of the Game

[Aaron Read <aread@speakeasy.net>]

At 03:43 PM 1/31/2003 -0500, Ron Bello wrote:
>>( and Disney/Hearst bundle a good chunk
>>                              of stations together ) Here in Boston they 
>> played hardball by saying you don't want to
>>                              pay for ESPN? Fine you can't carry WCVB 
>> either. The threat was never carried out here
>>                              but it was done in New York City when WABC 
>> vanished for a couple of days 2 years ago
>>                              from Time Warner systems.
>
>ABC network & WABC is owned by Disney and used that leverage with cable 
>systems in NYC area to
>force the carriage of the second and third tier cable networks.  These 
>networks also compete with those
>of AOL Time Warner who owns the cable systems.

IIRC, Disney caught a LOT of hell for that move, too.   There were - 
briefly - talks of anti-trust lawsuits....although I equated those threats 
at the same level as the threats to have the FCC yank WNEW's license in the 
wake of the Opie & Anthony scandal...it sounds nice to the general public, 
but it'd never happen in the real world.

Still, it was generally considered a very dumb move to hardball like they did.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aaron "Bishop" Read             aread@speakeasy.net
FriedBagels Consulting          AOL-IM: readaaron
http://www.friedbagels.com      Boston, MA