Bloomberg reports that Tennis Channel and Cablevision have engaged in years of fruitless negotiations for a carriage deal. Cablevision is claiming it can put the channel in its sports bouquet by virtue of its membership of the National Cable Television Cooperative (NCTC), a body which negotiates deals with programmers for cable operators. Tennis Channel claims that Cablevision joined the NCTC only recently, specifically to take advantage of a 2002 deal the body struck with Tennis Channel, designed for small operators.
“This is highly suspect and makes little sense,” said Ken Solomon, the channel’s chief executive. “I don’t know if this will stand up legally.”
Last week, Tennis Channel vented its anger with the failure of the Cablevision negotiations in print advertisements that said “Thanks for Nothing Cablevision”, and showed a tennis racket smashing a cable box. Cablevision responded in its newspaper Newsday by advertising US Open programming on CBS and ESPN2, but ignoring Tennis Channel’s coverage.
