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Time Warner calls for FCC review Cable giant Time Warner is petitioning US regulators to introduce a new framework to deal with carriage fee negotiations, in a bid to prevent viewers from being "caught in the middle" during disagreements. The call comes after a breakdown in talks last week between Cablevision and Disney led to the Mouse House pulling coverage of the Oscars from millions of viewers' feeds. That row followed a spate of others, including Cablevision and Scripps coming to blows over carriage of Food Network, which went dark in parts of New York earlier this year. In a statement, Time Warner said it would ask the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to "address skyrocketing consumer costs by establishing a new framework for resolving retransmission consent disputes and ensuring that consumers are not caught in the middle. "Specifically, we plan to ask the FCC to consider arbitration and forcing continuation of carriage during a dispute." Time Warner has its own motivations for the petition - it is due to begin carriage negotiations with Disney later this year. According to US reports, as many as 13 other cable, satellite and IPTV players - including DirecTV, Cablevision, Dish Network, Verizon and Charter - are uniting to form a coalition and back Time Warner's call. Adam Benzine 10 Mar 2010 © C21 Media 2010 
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