Sports Fan Coalition, beIN Warn of MOU 'Failed Experiment' in New Charter
Rather than another "failed experiment" memoranda of understanding such as on the order on Comcast's buying control of NBCUniversal, the FCC should ensure Charter Communications' buys of Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable safeguard independent sports programmers through "meaningful,…
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effective, practical means," beIN Sports and the Sports Fan Coalition (SFC) told Commissioner Mignon Clyburn Chief of Staff David Grossman, said an ex parte filing Friday in docket 15-149. BeIN and SFC said at the meeting they cited some of the competitive dangers Charter/TWC/BHN poses by its ability to force below-market terms on independent programing providers or to restrict distribution of their content on competing over-the-top platforms. They also said in the case of sports programming, even if an independent such as beIN can match bids of cable-owned sports programmers for distribution rights, the cable-owned programmer still has upper hand through being able to offer better distribution and promotion of its own programming service. Charter didn't comment Friday.