Comcast offered CSN Philly to both Dish and Direct almost 3 years ago.. The FCC ordered it. They balked at the price and Comcast offered arbitration but they said no. I read an article at the time where a Dish rep said they didn't feel they would get enough new customers to justify the price of adding CSN Philly. I contacted the Phillies at the time to complain about the situation and they verified that Comcast offered CSN Philly to the sats around the time of the new Phillies contract with CSN and both Dish and Direct refused to add the channel. I can even understand their argument for not adding it but did not agree with it. Direct/Dish lowest subscriber numbers are in the market where CSN Philly is the RSN. Its true that at one time CSN Philly would not sell to Dish/Direct but that excuse is long gone. The blame is directly on them now and if they don't have CSN Philly on this new DTVNow service then yes they are engaged in a childish feud.
Washington, D.C. (January 27, 2014) - DIRECTV and Dish have rejected arbitration hearings to settle their differences with Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia, which the satcasters have never carried, according to the Philadelphia Phillies, as reported in Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer.
The absence of the popular Philadelphia-based regional sports channel on the nation's top two satellite TV services has been a recurring controversy for roughly a decade. And it's likely to become a larger one this spring when the channel's coverage of the Phillies jumps from 120 regular season games to 140 games because of a new $2.5 billion deal Comcast has signed with the baseball team.
Comcast once used a loophole in FCC regulations allowing it to refuse to offer the channel to DIRECTV and Dish. The cable operator, which is based in Philadelphia, enjoyed a competitive advantage there over its satellite rivals because it could carry the channel while they could not. But the FCC closed the loophole in 2010, supposedly clearing the way for DIRECTV and Dish to add SportsNet Philadelphia.
But over the past three plus years, the channel has remained off the satellite airwaves and money seems to be the reason. In the Enquirer article, Bonnie Clark, the Phillies' vice president of communications (the Phils are now 25 percent owner of the channel) says Comcast Sports Net offered both DIRECTV and Dish 'baseball-style' arbitration to arrive at a carriage fee that all sides would support.
"Comcast SportsNet has offered the channel to both DIRECTV and Dish Network," she told the newspaper. "In fact, Comcast SportsNet has offered to go to arbitration with both of the satellite services with the hope that they will sign on soon to give Phillies fans the opportunity to tune in regardless of their service provider."
If Dish and DIRECTV agreed to arbitration, they could conceivably begin carrying the channel before the Phillies' 2014 opening day.
Asked for a response on Sunday, DIRECTV spokesman Robert Mercer told TVPredictions.com that the company would decline to comment. E-mails to two different Dish spokespeople have not been responded to as of Monday morning.
