The battle over MSG HD continues as Cablevision has filed an appeal. From Multichannel News-
“We are pursuing a stay with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals while we seek a review of the Orders,” said Cablevision in a statement. “We continue to believe that an unbiased review of the data can only result in one conclusion: that there has been no competitive harm to the nation’s two largest phone companies. In a highly competitive marketplace like New York, a forced sharing of offerings only deters companies from investing and innovating, which hurts both fair competition and consumers. Verizon and AT&T should be expected to compete based on their products and not by manipulating federal law.”
Without the stay, says Cablevision, MSG will suffer “irreparable harm to their market share, reputation, and First Amendment rights.”
Cablevision argues that it needs to differentiate its MVPD service from that of AT&T and Verizon, since the phone companies can offer the same bundle of services, plus wireless phone service that Cablevision doesn’t offer. “Cablevision thus viewed it important to provide at least some channels that the telephone companies cannot,” it argues, which is why it did not make the HD feeds of its MSG regional sports net available to AT&T’s U-Verse and Verizon’s FiOS services.
