Comcast close to issuing credits to sports-net viewers

[Bob Jersey]

For games that weren't shown April-to-June. A nasty letter to them, and other distributors, from the NY attorney general helped bring this about.

https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/comcast-sports-tv-rebates-baseball-1234721141/ (link)

B

[Joe Hass]

I don't get this. The channels didn't disappear. Their programming did. Why should a service provider have to refund funds if the channels didn't air a show unless the channels refunded their fees?

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[Jim Ellwanger]

I assume it’s because Comcast and other providers charge a separate “RSN fee” that’s based on the cost of the live sports on whichever regional sports networks they carry in a given area. The article says they’re not refunding for national networks such as ESPN, the costs of which are usually baked into the cost of the standard channel package.

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[Adam Bowie]

Do we think ESPN has had to pay back any of its fees during the pandemic?

In the UK, sports channels are almost always add-ons and aren't bundled with basic packages like ESPN. That means people can quickly pick up the phone and cancel them. The main providers have all done some kind of pausing of subscriptions during the no-sport part of the pandemic. With Sky Sports you had to, at least initially, go to a website and hit pause on your subscription. It was easy to do if you knew to do it in the first place. They didn't actually shut off access to the channels, so if old sport re-runs were your thing, you were in clover!

BT Sport also made you visit a website, and did ask if you instead wanted to donate your subscription fee to charity. Which of course is a lovely tax write off for the company donating it... 

People who pay for the Eurosport Player OTT platform just got regular emails saying your subscription was being extended additional months for each month of no new action.

Of course many sports leagues have had to pay back broadcasters for those missing hours of sport, so it seems only fair that consumers should get something too. But one way or another sports economics will be completely screwed up for a while.

Adam

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