Antonio Briceño
beIN SPORTS refiled a carriage complaint with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) against Comcast.
“This new filing provides more detail and robust evidence for Comcast’s discriminatory practices against beIN SPORTS following the original filing in March of 2018. As described in the original complaint, the refiling maintains that Comcast has ignored its obligations as a vertically integrated multichannel video programming distributor and discriminated against beIN SPORTS as an independent network in favor of its own soccer content and other sports programming to the detriment of beIN SPORTS and its viewers, violating program carriage rules. The FCC did not agree with any of Comcast’s arguments and dismissed the complaint without prejudice only because the evidence did not allow sufficient certainty on certain matters. Such practices are not only damaging to fair competition and plurality in the broadcast market but also deny sports fans premium sports content,” said the network in a release.
Antonio Briceño, beIN SPORTS’ Deputy Managing Director for the U.S. and Canada expressed: “We have spent many months tirelessly trying to negotiate reasonable terms with Comcast, but Comcast has now, point-blank, refused to negotiate with us. Thus, beIN SPORTS has refiled our carriage complaint against Comcast, providing additional evidence, consistent with FCC guidance, to substantiate Comcast’s discriminatory practices against beIN SPORTS and in favor of their NBC affiliates. Unfortunately, this is a continued strategy of leveraging large, vertically integrated cable carriers against smaller networks like ours to the detriment of devoted, loyal fans.”
Briceño adds that they remain hopeful that an agreement can be reached to reinstate the channel at the same levels of distribution as Comcast’s own sports networks with which beIN SPORTS simply seeks to compete on a fair basis.
Subscribers who would like to keep beIN SPORTS and beIN SPORTS en Español can visit www.keepbeINonXFINITY.com or call 1-877-789-1392 to file a complaint to their cable provider directly.
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