US pay-television broadcaster the Tennis Channel has resumed its long-running carriage dispute with pay-television provider Comcast by asking US media regulator the Federal Communications Commission to again look at the case.
The latest development comes after the Supreme Court last month rejected Tennis Channel’s complaint against Comcast’s decision to carry the network on a premium sports tier. Tennis Channel in December called on the Supreme Court to review a ruling from a lower court that reiterated Comcast’s right to carry the network on a premium sports tier.
In May, a three-judge panel of the Washington DC Circuit overturned rulings from the FCC that Comcast should put Tennis Channel on an equal footing with Comcast-owned pay-television channels Golf Channel and NBC Sports Network.
The regulator concluded that Comcast was in violation of programme carriage provisions of the 1992 Cable Act, but the appellate judges said that the FCC “failed to identify adequate evidence of unlawful discrimination.”
The Variety newspaper said Tennis Channel is now arguing that the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals was imposing a different “test” than the FCC did in deciding whether Comcast violated program carriage rules. Tennis Channel claims that the appellate court had sought evidence that broader distribution of Tennis Channel would benefit Comcast, enhancing the notion that Comcast’s placement of Tennis Channel on upper tiers is motivated by favouritism for channels it owns.
Tennis Channel said Comcast’s “purported business justifications for restricting Tennis Channel’s carriage were merely pretexts designed to obscure a discriminatory purpose.” It added in a statement: “There is considerable evidence in the record that satisfies the new tests, and we are confident that, as in every agency finding throughout the history of this case, the Commission will once again conclude that Tennis Channel is correct in its view that Comcast has illegally discriminated against it in violation of Section 616 of the Communications Act.”
In response to the latest development, Comcast said: “After years of litigation and scurrilous accusations by the Tennis Channel, the plain and simple fact is that the Court of Appeals unanimously concluded that carrying the Tennis Channel in the manner it demanded would have had immense costs and no benefits for Comcast and that, therefore, Comcast’s carriage decision was appropriate and non-discriminatory. When given the opportunity to pursue the case at the Supreme Court, the government’s own lawyers chose not to do so.”