Yuma joins cities in filing FCC complaint
Local channels also pulled in El Centro and Jackson, Wyo.
Hoping there’s strength in numbers, Yuma joined other cities in filing a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission against Spectrum’s parent company, Charter Communications.
Yuma, Jackson, Wyo., and El Centro, Calif., filed the complaint on March 15, charging that the cable provider “willfully violated” the 30-day notice requirement contained in the commission’s rules by failing to provide any advance notice of its intent to remove local channels from the cable lineup.
The cities note that the removal equaled an increase in the rates paid by customers, also made without the required notice, because customers are now receiving less services than they are contracted for.
The municipalities are asking the FCC to declare that Charter has violated the federal rules and order the company to correct “any misrepresentation that the channel deletion did not involve fault on the part of Charter.” They are also asking that the FCC ensure refunds are issued to affected Charter subscribers for the unnoticed rate increase, without the need for customers to call Charter.
The cities are also asking the federal agency to assess “substantial and appropriate” fines against Charter “for its knowing, intentional, and repeated violation of the Commission’s rules.”
The document states that on Feb. 2, Charter removed KYMA and KSWT, affiliates of NBC and CBS, and the Spanish station Estrella, all owned by Northwest Broadcasting, from its channel lineup in Yuma. The complaint says that Yuma was not notified by Charter until half an hour after the channels were removed. Subscribers in Yuma were notified by Charter more than two hours after the removal of the channels.
Yuma subsequently issued a notice to Charter that it had violated its license and was subject to remedies including liquidated damages. Charter responded with a letter dated Feb. 19 denying any violation, the document says.
On Feb. 2 Charter removed KPVI, an affiliate of NBC owned by Northwest, from its lineup in Jackson, without providing any advance notice to subscribers, the complaint says. Jackson was also never notified and had to contact Charter to inquire about the blackout. Charter responded by letter dated Feb. 13,
11 days after the channels were removed. On March 6, Jackson issued a formal notice of violation to the company.
The document states that on Feb. 2, Charter removed KYMA and KWST, both owned by Northwest, from its lineup in El Centro without any prior notice.
According to the complaint, Northwest reached out to Charter about eight months before the scheduled expiration date of their agreements, sometime around May, but the companies did not actually begin discussing the agreement until October. Charter presented oral proposals on Nov. 20 and Jan. 17 and put them in writing on Feb. 2.
On the expiration date, Jan. 31, Charter said that it would enter into “dayto-day” extensions, and the parties agreed to extensions until Feb. 2.
On Feb. 2, Northwest proposed another 24-hour extension to allow negotiations to continue. Charter reportedly declined, “demanding instead” a threeday extension until Feb. 5 to allow subscribers to watch the Super Bowl but indicating that Charter would agree to no more extensions and would pull the channels on Feb. 5 if an agreement was not reached, the document says.
Northwest “stated a willingness to discuss additional extensions,” but 10 minutes before the agreement expired on Feb. 2, Charter reportedly refused to consent to an extension and told Northwest that it was removing the stations at 5 p.m. Eastern that day.
Following the removal of the stations from the lineup, “Charter began to undertake some limited, insufficient efforts to provide after-the-fact notice to the Municipalities and its customers.” The document says Charter made on-air announcements of the removal, notified subscribers via email, distributed the address of a website and advised subscribers that they could view NBC programming, including the Super Bowl and the Olympics, via NBC streaming video services.
“While the Municipalities and subscribers did not receive notice that the channels would be removed until after Charter shut them down, Charter had in fact been planning its post-blackout notice and public relations campaign for weeks,” the document says.
The municipalities pointed out that the website northwestfairdeal. com, which blamed Northwest for the programming disruption, had been registered by Charter on Jan. 18, almost two weeks before the estimated expiration and the day after Charter made an oral offer to Northwest.
“Not only did Charter fail to provide advance notice, the notice it did provide was misleading,” the document says.
The municipalities noted that the notice rule is in place to give customers the chance to make their voices heard before any programming changes are made and allow them to make alternative arrangements, such as by changing service providers.
“From a customer perspective, then, this is a clear violation of the rules, and a violation that seems in all likelihood to have been planned to place the most pressure on Northwest, while avoiding the customer losses Charter might otherwise have suffered had it provided notice 30 days in advance.”
Asked to comment, Charter spokesman Dennis Johnson reiterated on Tuesday that “Northwest decided to pull its programming, KYMA and KSWT, from our customers’ lineups. We cannot carry their stations without their express consent, which they have not provided us.
“Northwest is demanding an outrageous rate increase. They continue to demand to be paid significantly more than what we pay any other broadcast station for the same network programming. The rising cost of programming is the single greatest factor in higher cable prices.
“This is simply how Northwest operates: Northwest has pulled its programming before from nearly all other TV distributors: DirecTV, Dish, and both Verizon and Cable One just last year.
“Our negotiations are about one thing; reaching an agreement that is fair to our customers.”
View the entire complaint at https://ecfsapi.fcc. gov/file/103162896211133/ Petition.PDF .