Time Warner Offers To Carry NFL Network Games On PPV

By John Ourand, Staff Writer

It appears that the standoff between Time Warner Cable and the NFL Network is not likely to end soon. In a letter sent to NFL Network President & CEO and NFL Exec VP/New Media Steve Bornstein today, Time Warner offered to carry the network’s eight NFL games as PPV telecasts, with the NFL setting the cost and collecting all of the revenues. “While carriage with no mark-up to us is far from ideal from our point of view, we are willing to take this step to make sure no interested fan is unable to watch these games on our systems,” wrote Time Warner Senior Exec VP Rob Marcus. Marcus reiterated Time Warner’s stance that NFL Network should be offered either as a premium channel or on a sports tier.  NFL Network was not available to comment Monday morning. In describing the letter, a Time Warner spokesperson accused the NFL of “denying public access to games that were once available on broadcast or other more widely distributed networks. The NFL moved these games over to the NFL Network simply so they could extract more money from viewers. This is no different than when the NFL entered into an agreement to offer out of market games exclusively over DirecTV.”  NFL Network Dir of Communications Seth Palansky responded, "It's a gimmick and it should be viewed as such. We are not and never have been interested in anything but offering our fans broad and affordable access to NFL Network's year-round programming. We just want our programming to be treated on the same terms Time Warner treats its own channels."

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