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Time Warner goes on offense vs. the NFL
Web Posted: 12/11/2006 08:38 PM CST
Sanford Nowlin
Express-News Business Writer
Time Warner Cable is aiming a new local ad blitz at the NFL after facing weeks of public pressure from the league for not carrying its fledgling cable network.
Starting today, the city's dominant cable provider will run 30-second TV spots and newspaper ads explaining its position in a programming dispute with the NFL. The company is balking at the network's price and at the league's insistence that the network be included in a basic package rather than on a sports tier for which subscribers pay extra.
"The NFL wants you to pay $140 million to watch football," the spots say, amid images of a football referee throwing a penalty flag for unsportsmanlike conduct and unnecessary roughness. "That's one game we won't play."
The ads come as it looks like San Antonio fans will miss Saturday's Dallas Cowboys-Atlanta Falcons game because of the protracted and increasingly public fight. The game will be carried on network TV in Dallas, but is available only on NFL Network here.
Several other services, including satellite broadcasters Dish Network and DirecTV and AT&T Inc.'s U-verse, carry the NFL Network.
The Cowboys-Falcons contest is one of eight games the NFL Network will carry this year, and it might have pulled high ratings here as fans clamor to catch Dallas' final match-ups before it claims a likely place in the playoffs.
The Alamo City ranked second in the nation behind Dallas-Fort Worth in viewers of Sunday night's Dallas Cowboys-New Orleans Saints game, according to Nielsen Media Research data.
"I am dismayed and I'm really taken aback that this game is not going to be able to be seen by a large percentage of our fans," said Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who sits on the NFL owners' broadcast committee.
"I'm really surprised that it's come to this point with Time Warner."
The NFL has run its own ads in recent weeks urging football fans to call Time Warner and demand that it carry the network. After Saturday, the network will have just three games left this season.
Such disputes among cable systems and networks are increasingly common as the systems struggle to keep prices down amid compe ion from satellite providers and phone companies like AT&T.
However, the tussle with the NFL marks the first time Time Warner has taken out local ads to explain itself, spokesman Jon Gary Herrera said.
"This dispute is unprecedented in terms of the profile," Herrera said. "And it's not just Time Warner. There are other significant players in the cable industry who are trying to insulate their customers from the price that the NFL is asking."
The NFL's asking price would put the network among the five most-costly that Time Warner carries. The cable company, which has 13.5 million subscribers nationwide, wants to put the NFL Network on a sports tier where it can ask a higher price from interested customers and avoid passing on the expense to the rest.
New York's Cablevision Systems and San Marcos-based Grande Communications Inc. also have not reached agreements with the NFL. And the league has sued cable giant Comcast Communications after it moved the network to a sports tier.
"This is an interesting case because the NFL is speaking directly to the fans past the cable providers and asking them to force the cable providers to carry the network," said Jennifer Henderson, a Trinity University media studies professor. "We still don't know if it's an approach that will work in the long run."
While the NFL is butting heads with some carriers, league spokesman Seth Palansky said it has hammered out deals with dozens of others, including Dish Network and DirecTV and AT&T's U-verse.
"If it's true that none of Time Warner's customers are upset about this, why are they running this ad campaign?" Palansky asked. "We know that new subscriptions to satellite providers like Dish Network are up in your market."
Dish and DirecTV have said the Time Warner-NFL scrap has helped generate interest in their services. While San Antonio-based AT&T said the NFL Network could help set it apart from Time Warner, officials haven't said whether it has boosted subscriber numbers.
Herrera acknowledged that some customers have canceled Time Warner service here over the dispute, but he said that number is "under 100." New video installations for the company — which serves 360,000 San Antonio households — were up 12 percent in November from a year ago.
"We've heard from just as many customers who want us to hold the line with the NFL as we have customers who want us to carry the network," Herrera said.
