Spectrum accused of violating license
City demands refunds for Yuma subscribers
Spectrum has been put on notice by the city. It’s seeking damages in the amount of $864 for every day that the cable provider blacks out local channels KYMA-NBC and KSWT-CBS.
The city is also demanding that Spectrum credits Yuma subscribers for dropping the channels without notice.
On Feb. 6, Assistant City Attorney Dan White sent a letter to Charter Communications, Spectrum’s parent company, accusing the cable provider of breaching its license with the city and violating federal requirements.
According to White, the license requires Spectrum to comply with federal law, including FCC regulations which call for giving subscribers a 30-day notice of impending changes to services, allowing them to decide whether they want to reduce services or drop them altogether.
The letter also notes Spectrum did not notify the city of its intention to black out the channels as required by the license. Spectrum stopped broadcasting KYMA and KSWT at 3 p.m. local time on Friday and affected important programming such as access to Sunday’s Super Bowl and the Olympics, which kick off this week.
White points out that Spectrum did not notify its subscribers until 5:03 p.m. Friday and did not notify the city until 3:31 p.m.
The letter indicates the license allows Spectrum to intentionally interrupt service “only for good cause and for the shortest time possible, and except in emergency situations, only after a minimum of 48 hours prior notice to subscribers and the city of the anticipated service interruption.”
White alleges that the cable provider’s notice was “deficient” for two reasons: Spectrum did not provide the city with 48 hours prior notice of the interruption of service and the notice — which came after the interruption began — was by an email when the license requires notice by first-class mail to the city administrator and city attorney.
“Even if one assumes that Charter’s decision to stop carriage was ‘beyond its control’ — and nothing Charter has provided suggests that this is the case — there is no excuse for failure to provide notice more than 2 hours after carriage stopped. As far as the City can determine, the service interruption was anticipated,” the letter says.
White then calls for “immediate action” to resolve the situation, including restoration of the channels “at least until you are able to provide the required notices.”
In addition, the letter notes that the contract says that subscribers will receive a credit if service is substantially impaired and that it expects that Charter/Spectrum will provide a credit to all subscribers.
White says the interruption is subject to “liquidated damages,” which amount to $864.39 per day and began accruing immediately upon breach and will continue to accrue until service is restored or Spectrum has complied with
the 30-day notice requirement.
SPECTRUM RESPONSE
When reached by the Yuma Sun for comment, Spectrum spokesman Dennis Johnson had not seen the letter. After being sent a digital copy, he said that Spectrum would be “declining comment on the letter.”
However, Johnson added, “We cannot carry these signals — KYMA and KSWT — without the consent of the stations, which they have not provided us.”
He then noted the situation happened “because Northwest Broadcasting pulled its programming, KYMA and KSWT, from our customers’ lineup ... We offered Northwest an extension through the weekend until after the Super Bowl but they refused and pulled their programming.
“Northwest is demanding to be paid significantly more than what we pay any other broadcast station for the same network programming. Northwest’s fee increase demand of over 75% is outrageous,” Johnson added.
“We refuse to pay the huge fee increase they are demanding, especially since their programming is provided free over the air, and much of it is available over the internet ... We are fighting to keep costs down for our customers. The rising cost of programming is the single greatest factor in higher cable prices. Our negotiations are about one thing; reaching an agreement that is fair to our customers, and we hope to be able to return this programming soon.”
He suggested Spectrum customers visit NorthwestFairDeal.com for more information.
On the other side, Brian Brady, president and CEO of Northwest, blamed Charter/Spectrum for removing the channels without notice.
“The facts are, Charter/Spectrum refused to negotiate with our company, pulled our stations off their systems, turned on their corporate public relations machine, and began spreading lies about our company,” Brady wrote on a Facebook post.
In lengthy message posted on the KYMA Facebook page on Wednesday, Brady wrote: “In an effort to get to some resolution we did something we never do. We gave them a new proposal knowing we were actually negotiating against ourselves. We then offered them an extension until Friday at 5 p.m. in order for us to work together so as to avoid any disruption. Friday afternoon with the new deadline looming they sent us a counter offer that was going to need work. Knowing it was going to take more time we offered another extension through 5 p.m. Saturday and said let’s roll up our sleeves and get this figured out. Their response was they wanted to extend until Monday so their subscribers could watch the Super Bowl before they took the stations down. Perplexed by what they had said we repeated our offer to extend until Saturday at five and if we didn’t come to an agreement we would deal with another extension at that time. Their next response was, ‘we are taking your station down in the next ten minutes’ and they hung up the phone. We haven’t heard from them since.”
Until the channels are restored, KYMA (NBC) and KSWT (CBS) programming are available over the air with an antenna and online. The Olympics will be featured and available on a live, authenticated stream on the NBC Sports app and NBCOlympics.com.