May 3, 2006
Comcastigated
Yesterday, we noted that legislative efforts to force Comcast's hand on airing MASN broadcasts of Nationals games were picking up steam. Sure enough, the D.C. Council considered and passed emergency legislation sponsored by Jack Evans and Vincent Orange that requires Comcast to air those broadcasts or renegotiate its franchise agreement with the District. According to the Washington Business Journal, the legislation will become official in two weeks, barring a mayoral veto.
Of course, that could mean precisely nothing.
Comcast released a statement yesterday calling the Council's legislation illegal, as local governments are prohibited by Federal Law from dictating programming content. It seems likely, therefore, that all we'll have to show for this Act, in two weeks, will be a lawsuit. Said Comcast:
We appreciate the attempt by the Council to help find a viable compromise, and the recognition of most members of the Council that pressure needs to be applied on Peter Angelos in order to resolve this dispute. We share the Council's frustration with the current situation but believe that its decision to adopt this legislation may only prolong the unfortunate dispute that is keeping the Nationals off of local cable television. Further, as experts have pointed out, this legislation will not have any legal effect as local government efforts to mandate programming are clearly impermissible under federal law.
Legal hurdles aside, Comcast has to sense the public pressure building. With an official D.C. Council statement on the books and an angry Tom Davis ready to wield the power of the U.S. Congress, it's hard to imagine Comcast continuing to hold to an increasingly isolated position.
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Sooner or later the marketplace will achieve what toothless legislation can't - in the past year, the number of DirecTV dishes around my house has increased at least fivefold, and I suspect that all or almost all of them belong to former Comcast customers.
Does anyone really care that these games are not on TV? Seriously, is there some popular uprising in the District to which the Council is responding, becuase I haven't sensed it.
Tom Davis does. I know his Government Reform Committee doesn't have any reforming of the government to do, but seriously is this the type of stuff that Congress needs to be addressing?
RCN people!
Lots of people like me dropped comcast for directv when we found out the number of games that were going to be broadcast. There is a fanbase out there that are thrilled that we have baseball back in DC, and want to be able to watch the games. It would be nice if people that can't afford cable or satellite to be able to watch their hometeam, too.
f*ck peter angelos.
f*ck him right in the pooper.
re: Peter angelos, doesn't this have more to do with how MLB had to bribe peter to 'let' him approve a team for dc and less to do with comcast? i;m not saying comcast is great, but not all the blame can be theirs. i think peter and mlb need to explain themselves as well.
I really hope the new owners didn't sign something that prevents them from yelling about how big of a hold Peter Angelos has on the Nationals team and DC in general. ANgelos thinks DC is his own pissing ground.
Eventually, the DC owner group will have had enough and demand that Peter stay the f'ck out of DC baseball affairs.
The only people "isolat[ing]" Comcast in its position are the Councilmembers who have abandoned their earlier positions on this topic. Just a few weeks ago I saw Evans on TV saying how frustrated he was by Angelos and MLB. A year ago Barry wrote an opinion piece in the Post decrying the treatment of DC as second-class citizens. Now these two are at the forefront of blaming (without "blaming") Comcast.
Making matters worse is the fact that MLB chose owners who appear to be the most likely to be quiet and do what Angelos and Selig want them to do, which means that they are less likely to stand up for themselves in the TV non-sense.
The whole thing stinks. If the City is so concerned about getting the games on Comcast then why don't they just use their public access channels? They could have that up and running tomorrow so at least everyone can see the games while the two-and-a-half sides sort this out. But ganging up on Comcast just because nobody has the stones to challenge Angelos and his Nixon-style "IT'S OUR TERRRITORY!" rants just proves that DC government is run by the kind fo second-class citizens we always claim we aren't.
Last year i was a COX subscriber and they dont broadcast NATS games either. The nats where playing the Braves and their games are always on TBS or TNT, so I put it on TBS only to find that the channel had been blacked out. It's one thing to not show a MASN produced program but to block a Turner produced game is just ridiculous.
I'm now a RCN subscriber and i watch at least 5 games a week. I feel bad for everyone who cant see the games.