360AM: Britt Rejects Goodell’s Patriots-Giants Ploy
Cable360AM — News briefing for Friday, Dec. 21 »
Time Warner Cable turned down the NFL’s offer of temporary NFL Network access in exchange for binding arbitration that would settle the carriage dispute between the two parties. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell laid out the deal, which would enable Time Warner Cable to deliver the Dec. 29 Patriots-Giants game to subscribers, in a letter he sent yesterday to Time Warner Cable president and CEO Glenn Britt and, via Goodell’s public relations arm, to press outlets. Time Warner and Comcast want to work out their negotiations with the NFL privately, while the league is lobbying federal and state legislators to enforce arbitration processes.
Yesterday, Wisconsin legislators listened to testimony from the Big Ten Network and the NFL Network, and from the cable industry; the state is considering a bill that would send the parties to the arbitration table. [Sporting News]
Wall Street analysts are keeping a close watch on the Southwest Florida market, where Verizon’s FiOS TV is slugging it out with cable operators Comcast and Bright House Networks. Verizon is giving customers there a high-definition television if they sign a two-year contract for its triple play of services. Comcast and Bright House Networks spokesmen told the Herald Tribune in Southwest Florida that the offer was a gimmick used to trap people in contracts with high cancellation fees. [Herald Tribune]
The Wall Street Journal takes a look at ESPN’s new strategy of hiring veterans of print journalism and deploying them to the Web, ESPN the Magazine and select spots on its television networks. The strategy is to offer fans more news and analysis, the paper says. Sports highlights, once a staple of ESPN’s coverage, now are available to fans from other sources, and Bristol hopes that by adding journalistic talent it can retain viewers and online visitors, the paper says. [Wall Street Journal]
Phillip Swann Predicts: Apple will drop its PC-to-TV service Apple TV in 2008. [TVPredictions.com]
360AM will return Wed., Dec. 26. We wish you a happy and safe holiday.
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