Cablevision Responds to GSN Carriage Complaint, Which It Says Tests the Limits of Logic Behind Section 616
The Game Show Network (GSN) carriage complaint against Cablevision rests on the “patently absurd” idea that the network is full of programming targeting women, Cablevision said in an answer to the complaint filed at the FCC this week. GSN complained that Cablevision moved it to a pricier sports tier to reduce competition to AMC Networks’ WE tv channel on its more widely distributed tier. The Media Bureau recently declined to grant GSN interim carriage during the dispute (CD Dec 9 p10).
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"GSN is a network devoted to game shows. WE tv by contrast is a network specifically for and about topics of interest to women,” Cablevision said. “The programming line-ups of the two networks pointedly reveal their differences.” Cablevision recently spun off AMC Networks. Moreover, GSN’s audience barely skews female and only in the 65 and older demographic, a cohort that does not watch much WE tv programming, it said, though it redacted the specific ratings data from the documents it filed at the FCC.
"Forcing Cablevision to reconfigure its expanded basic tier to add a network that was consistently one of the least watched networks on the tier cannot be in the best interest of the public,” Cablevision said. Cable operators, especially in a market as competitive as New York, need to use their best business judgment when coming up with tiers to market to subscribers, Cablevision said. “Particularly in light of the Commission’s often-stated concern about rising cable rates, the Commission should not now intervene in a manner that would add costs to the expanded basic tier,” it said.
Furthermore, if GSN is deemed to be “similarly situated” to WE tv and AMC’s Wedding Central network, “section 616 [of the Communications Act] will have no logical limits,” Cablevision said. Any programming would be able to demand carriage with a minimal showing, “all to add programming that Cablevision and the market has determined does not merit carriage or fees demanded,” it said.
The filing also painted a different picture of conversations between an executive at DirecTV, which is a part owner of GSN, and Cablevision, than the one provided by GSN in its complaint (CD Oct 14 p8). After Cablevision notified GSN it would move it to the higher-priced tier, DirecTV Executive Vice President of Content Strategy and Development Derek Chang asked Tom Rutledge, then Cablevision’s chief operating officer, to “think more broadly about the value the entire GSN family could offer the Cablevision family, including AMC,” Cablevision’s answer said.
Rutledge directed Chang to Josh Sapan, now CEO of AMC Networks and then president of Cablevision’s Rainbow Media division, the filing said. They discussed “numerous possible business deals, some involving carriage of Wedding Central, and others including the possible opportunities for mutual benefits,” but the two were unable to reach an agreement, the filing said. In GSN’s telling, it was Cablevision who proposed potentially restoring wider carriage of GSN in exchange for DirecTV carrying Wedding Central.