FCC Denies Cablevision Appeal - MSG HD to come to FiOS by 11/25
It's official. Cablevision is out of time and stall tactics. The FCC has ordered them to provide FiOS and AT&T with MSG HD and MSG Plus HD feeds by 11/25/11
The Bureau’s Order found that Defendants violated Section 628(b) of the Act by
withholding from Verizon the HD versions of approximately half the hometown major league sports
teams in the New York and Buffalo DMAs.28 The Bureau found that Defendants’ withholding of the HD
versions of this non-replicable and “must have” local sports programming was an “unfair act” because, on
balance, the anticompetitive effects of the withholding outweighed any procompetitive benefits.
This is good news for all you Center Ice guys out there too.
__________________
"Why I'll be a Devil forever [...] two words. Trust and respect." - Mr. Pat Burns
"I learned not to question Cowbell's willingness to ban." - Brian Boyle
The FCC created its own problems in this scenario by allowing providers to own channels. People in Philadelphia and Washington have the same problems with CSN. It's total ********.
I had DirecTV for many years but I refused to live w/o the Devils in HD, so if this ruling applies to DirecTV as well, then time to tell Cablevision BUH-BYE!
The FCC created its own problems in this scenario by allowing providers to own channels. People in Philadelphia and Washington have the same problems with CSN. It's total ********.
I had DirecTV for many years but I refused to live w/o the Devils in HD, so if this ruling applies to DirecTV as well, then time to tell Cablevision BUH-BYE!
I have DirecTV and have had MSG in HD for all Devils games except two. One was the opener against Philly, and the other was against Nashville, but that was when DTV had problems and had to reset a bunch of receivers.
Edit: But this is with Center Ice package, not sure how it would work for you locals.
Don't worry Cablevision will find a way around it. lol
While I can see them trying to wiggle out of renewing the deal whenever it expires (hopefully not in the next few years), the FCC controls the airwaves so disobeying their order would, from my understanding, essentially be like disobeying a judge or other governing body with power. It would get them either some terribly harsh $$ penalties or even blacked out entirely. I can't see them killing their network to keep FiOS from getting HD
Fact of the matter is, we're getting HD on FiOS for a while
This is great news! I had DirecTV for years laregly because I couldn't stand Cablevision/Dolan but switched to Fios a few months back when I moved since it was a lot cheaper. Really tough to go from watching games in HD to SD. Glad to hear this is finally coming to an end soon - luckily the Devils have another game on Versus as well before the deadline.
The last paragraph in the article cracks me up:
Quote:
Cablevision said in a statement that it was considering all its options but said the FCC contniues to "disregard the facts.
"The evidence on record clearly demonstrates that there has been no competitive harm to the nation's two largest phone companies as a result of not having two HD channels they already receive in SD," the company said in a statement. " In markets like New York with as many as five video providers, the only thing this decision does is discourage companies from investing and innovating, which hurts both fair competition and consumers. Instead of competing on the merits of the products, Verizon and AT&T are manipulating federal law to gain an unfair advantage."
I wonder what kind of "evidence" they have that "clearly demonstrates there has been no competitive harm" to Fios as a result of not releasing those channels in HD, when Cablevision ran a whole ad campaign centered around this specific competitive advantage. Myself and many others on these boards have also commented on not having the games available in HD as the sole reason we didn't switch to Fios.
And if anyone can explain to me how this ruling hurts consumers or fair competition, or even gives Verizon and AT&T an unfair advantage, I'd love to hear it. I'm really baffled how anyone could take those comments seriously.
This is great news! I had DirecTV for years laregly because I couldn't stand Cablevision/Dolan but switched to Fios a few months back when I moved since it was a lot cheaper. Really tough to go from watching games in HD to SD. Glad to hear this is finally coming to an end soon - luckily the Devils have another game on Versus as well before the deadline.
The last paragraph in the article cracks me up:
I wonder what kind of "evidence" they have that "clearly demonstrates there has been no competitive harm" to Fios as a result of not releasing those channels in HD, when Cablevision ran a whole ad campaign centered around this specific competitive advantage. Myself and many others on these boards have also commented on not having the games available in HD as the sole reason we didn't switch to Fios.
And if anyone can explain to me how this ruling hurts consumers or fair competition, or even gives Verizon and AT&T an unfair advantage, I'd love to hear it. I'm really baffled how anyone could take those comments seriously.
to be fair, those statements were made after dolan jumped nose-first into a messy pile of methamphetamines
Don't worry Cablevision will find a way around it. lol
From all of the articles that I read it said Cablevision had 15 days from the courts decision, which was Nov 9th. Add 15 days .. Nov 24th (Thanksgiving).
With that said, I think the ******* Dolan has 1 more trick up his sleeve. Cablevision currently owns the AMC channel and does provide the HD feed to Fios, however its a tuned down version. The site I saw said a normal HD feed is something like 15+mbps and the AMC Cablevision was giving was 7 mbps. Lets hope they dont pull this **** here.
From all of the articles that I read it said Cablevision had 15 days from the courts decision, which was Nov 9th. Add 15 days .. Nov 24th (Thanksgiving).
With that said, I think the ******* Dolan has 1 more trick up his sleeve. Cablevision currently owns the AMC channel and does provide the HD feed to Fios, however its a tuned down version. The site I saw said a normal HD feed is something like 15+mbps and the AMC Cablevision was giving was 7 mbps. Lets hope they dont pull this **** here.
