• Associated Press via Businessweek, Wednesday, January 23, 2008 10:45 AM

One regional TV net that carries major league baseball and college sports in North Carolina has won a round in its court battle with media behemoth Time Warner. An arbitrator with the Federal Communications Commission has just ruled in favor of the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network, saying Time Warner discriminated against MASN because it wanted to protect sports coverage on its own regional network, News 14 Carolina.
Now, Time Warner has to carry MASN on the arbitrator's terms -- at least pending appeal. Said arbitrator will review plans from both companies and figure out which best represents the fair market rate. "Cable companies are powerful gatekeepers in determining what the public can access, and this ruling demonstrates that checks may be needed on their monopoly power," says MASN spokesman Todd Webster. "Both in North Carolina and beyond, consumers should have access to all relevant regional sports programming and not simply the programming that cable providers want viewers to see."

Time Warner insists the decision to not carry MASN is part of its "editorial and business judgment that a service featuring distant teams was of little interest to the great majority of our customers in North Carolina, and that the bulk of our customers shouldn't be forced to absorb the costs of programming that is of interest only to a few."

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