WealthTV wants the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to hear...
WealthTV wants the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to hear on an expedited basis its lawsuit against the FCC for dismissing the independent programmer’s complaint that four cable operators favored their own channel over the indie. The channel last…
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week asked for oral argument to be scheduled for no later than February. Comcast, among the operators WealthTV alleged unsuccessfully at the FCC favored a channel owned by In Demand over the indie, won’t do business with it until the case is finished, Wealth said. “The four Intervenors together control approximately 70 percent of the cable market,” the motion said of Bright House Networks, Comcast, Cox Communications and Time Warner Cable. The plaintiff said in an exhibit that it has been unable to “engage in meaningful discussions” with any of the four operators for carriage since its FCC program carriage complaint. “WealthTV is foreclosed effectively from doing business with them while this case pends before this Court,” the motion said. “WealthTV is a small business, and such broad foreclosure causes it continuing financial harm.” WealthTV v. FCC is docket 11-73134 at the 9th Circuit. A Comcast spokeswoman declined to comment. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral argument last week on Time Warner Cable’s appeal of program carriage rules adopted after WealthTV made its complaint. (See separate report above in this issue.)