NBC station in Boston sues Comcast
WHDH-TV, the local NBC station in Boston, has sued Comcast Corp. in federal court over a decision to strip the independent broadcaster of its network affiliation, saying that could leave millions of people without access to free over-the-air NBC shows.
WHDH-TV, the local NBC station in Boston, has sued Comcast Corp. in federal court over a decision to strip the independent broadcaster of its network affiliation, saying that could leave millions of people without access to free over-the-air NBC shows.
Boston-area viewers wishing to watch NBC News programs, The Voice, or other shows may be forced into a pay-TV package in a metro area in which Comcast is the dominant cable provider, the suit says.
"I put a lot of effort into [WHDH-TV] and I don't want to give it up," station owner Ed Ansin, 80, said of his suit.
NBCUniversal, the Comcast-owned unit that runs NBC, called the claims "meritless."
NBCUniversal confirmed that it will launch a company-owned NBC station in Boston in January that will replace WHDH, though the plan has not been released.
"To be clear, the new NBC-owned station will be a broadcast channel available to over-the-air viewers like our other NBC and Telemundo stations, not a cable-only channel as has been publicly speculated," Valari Staab, president of NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations, said in an email to employees.
"We are committed to expanding our over-the-air coverage of the market and currently looking at a variety of options to accomplish that," she wrote.
Besides the local Telemundo station, NBCUniversal runs the New England Cable News network in the Boston area and has added staff.
The dispute revisits some of the issues in the federal government's regulatory review of Comcast's acquisition of NBCUniversal in early 2011.
Independent NBC affiliates such as WHDH feared that Comcast could undermine the over-the-air NBC network that they used for entertainment and news programs once it acquired NBCUniversal.
To ease those concerns, Comcast signed an agreement with the association of about 200 independent local NBC stations assuring them of a "mutually beneficial relationship." The pact ended opposition from the local stations and was filed with regulators.
Ansin, who Forbes magazine says is worth $1.4 billion, contends that the biggest beneficiary of NBCUniversal's decision not to renew his NBC affiliation will be Comcast cable in the Boston area. Comcast controls about 85 percent of the Boston-area cable-TV market, says the federal suit, filed this month.
NBC intends to broadcast network programming to the Boston area using an NBCUniversal-owned Telemundo Spanish-language TV station based north of Boston, Ansin said.
The problem, he said, is that Telemundo's WNEU broadcasts over a smaller area than WHDH-TV - 3.2 million people compared with 7.1 million for WHDH.
NBCUniversal says there are options to expand the geographic area but has not said how. WHDH officials say NBCUniversal told them in private meetings that NBC would use WNEU.
Ansin also said that NBCUniversal can package advertising on lower-rated cable channels with high-rated NBC programs such as the Olympics - a potential ad boon for NBCUniversal.
A public spat between a national TV network and a large affiliate is unusual, observers say. They note that Ansin made waves a few years ago criticizing NBC for airing comic Jay Leno's program in prime time.
"I have been an NBC affiliate for 47 years and I had one argument with them, and it was over Leno and I did their way anyway," Ansin said.
He says he thinks he can win and if he doesn't, he will continue WHDH as an independent station.
"This isn't Washington," Ansin said. "We are going into federal court. They have 101 lobbyists, but they don't do any good in federal court in Boston."
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