New York Times
Supreme Court Declines Tennis Channel Appeal
February
24, 2014, 9:05 pm
By EDWARD WYATT
The
Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal from the Tennis Channel in
its dispute with Comcast over placement on the company’s cable channel lineup.
But the issue could be headed for a rematch of sorts. Comcast is trying to merge
with Time Warner Cable, and one of the issues that federal antitrust will be
examining is whether a bigger Comcast would be so dominant that it could wield
undue influence over programmers.
The decision by the Supreme Court came without comment, as is common. The
hearing was requested after a federal appeals court ruled in May that the
Federal Communications Commission had erred when it ordered Comcast to include
the Tennis Channel in its basic cable lineup.
That is the tier where it offers sports channels that it owns, namely the Golf
Channel and NBC Sports network.
Instead, the Tennis Channel was placed by Comcast among the premium sports tier
of cable channels, to which only a few million of Comcast’s roughly 22 million
customers subscribe. The Tennis Channel said that was unfair discrimination
because Comcast was favoring its own channels over those of competitors, a
violation of F.C.C. regulations.
Both an administrative law judge and the F.C.C. agreed and in 2012 ordered
Comcast to end the discrimination. Comcast appealed the F.C.C.’s ruling to the
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, which ruled
unanimously in Comcast’s favor.
The court said that the Tennis Channel failed to show that Comcast received any
benefit from its action.
“We are pleased that the finding by the lower court that Comcast did not
discriminate against Tennis Channel will stand,” said Sena Fitzmaurice, a
Comcast spokeswoman. “We continue to make Tennis Channel available to tennis
fans across the country in terms with our longstanding contract.”
In a statement, the Tennis Channel said it was disappointed but not necessarily
surprised. “There remain a number of available options for tennis Channel in the
case, and we are considering our next steps in light of these options,” the
company said.