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Federal Communications Commission has recently rejected a petition filed by Wave Broadband®, who alleged that Comcast® used unfair business practices that prevented them from airing TV programming to the customers. The Media Bureau of FCC termed the petition as a ‘program access complaint’, and stated that there are deadlines to file complaints of such nature.
“[W]e dismiss the Petition because Wave® did not file within the time limit that our program access rule requires,” said the Commission in a ruling favorable to Comcast®. FCC accepted the argument of the Telco giant that the petition against them from their rival was filed “in the final month of the contract terms, long after the [FCC’s one-year statute of] limitations periods expired.”
Wave Broadband® has over 400,000 subscribers in California, Oregon, Washington, whereas Comcast® has over 22 million TV subscribers nationwide and owns several TV networks. Cable providers pay Comcast® for accesses to TV programming channels. The petition from Wave Broadband® against regional sports networks owned by Comcast® stated that the company’s practices “had the effect of withholding must-have regional sports programming from the largest cable competitor to Comcast Cable® on the West Coast unless Wave® agreed to pay a punitive ransom totaling nearly $3.5 million.”
Both Wave Broadband® and Comcast® signed a contract back in October 2014, that required Wave® to deliver the Comcast-owned sports networks to a particular portion of the overall customers. “Ultimately, Wave® was not able to maintain the contracts’ agreed-upon subscriber penetration percentage terms—a result that Wave® attributes to Comcast’s decision to offer its regional sports networks through different distribution methods—and Wave® agreed in July 2017 to cure the breach of contract with a payment of damages to Comcast®,” noted Federal Communications Commission on the dispute.
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The ‘different distribution methods’, refers to the video services that carry online content from Comcast’s sports networks. Many of the customers, who subscribe to TV service, said that Wave® adds an online video service. That is what contributed to Wave’s failure to keep deliver Comcast-owned content to the subscriber percentage as mentioned in the contract.
Wave Broadband® argued that Comcast® made a threat to drop sports networks from the TV service if Wave® did not pay more, which they agreed to in turn seeking refunds. However, Comcast® disputed that Wave® made voluntary commitments in multiple contracts starting in 2005. “Yet Wave® now asks the Commission to declare that the parties’ arrangements under the expired agreements are ‘unlawful’, to absolve Wave’s acknowledged breach of the contracts,” Comcast® told FCC.
