Lawmakers in western Massachusetts are seeking federal support to combat a recent decision by Time Warner Cable to drop theNew England Cable Network from its regional lineup.
At the end of the month, Time Warner Cable customers in Berkshire County and areas in New Hampshire and Maine will be further cut off from 24-hour New England news coverage. In an email to WAMC, Time Warner's Eastern U.S. Public Relations Director Scott Pryzwansky wrote, "We do not believe NECN represents a good value for all of our New England customers. Value includes several factors, including cost, viewership and unique content." He added the company is happy to keep an open line of communication but has no plans to add the channel back to its lineup at this time for its more than 350,000 New England customers. This move will further limit regional customers’ access to statewide news as Time Warner currently blacks out two Springfield stations and Boston’s ABC affiliate for much of the day due to competition with Albany stations. State representative Smitty Pignatelli says the latest decision is another blow for Berkshire residents.
“My concern is when the blackout is happening and God forbid we go through another situation like the [Boston] Marathon bombing, which my daughter was at the finish line, and here I am in the Berkshires saying ‘Where is the breaking news?” Pignatelli said. “It’s blacked out. The Albany ABC affiliate didn’t do it. I think there are a lot of situations where there’s got to be breaking news interrupting the network and I don’t think, and nor should they, an Albany television station have to be worried about what’s going on in Cape Cod.”
Under FCC rules, Berkshire County is considered part of the Albany TV market. Mike Case is the GOP state committeeman for the Berkshire, Hampden and Franklin District. He says current television coverage of Massachusetts politics already leaves people in the Berkshires uninformed.
“The vast majority of the county is fed by the Albany market,” Case said. “I can tell you all about Governor Cuomo, but the only thing I can tell you about Deval Patrick is that he comes out here once in a while and visits his house in Richmond. We get no news out of Boston. None at all. So people, when it comes to a state election they go in blind as a bat. They just have no idea.”
Noting the network recently added five additional hours of live regional news coverage, NECN Senior Vice President and General Manager Mike St. Peter tells WAMC in an email that his company has negotiated with Time Warner and is very disappointed in the decision. Pignatelli and other members of the state’s delegation sent a letter to Massachusetts’ Washington delegation in hopes of amending the FCC rules or at least forcing the companies to sit down at the negotiating table. The Democrat from Lenox says a similar letter was sent in June when Boston’s ABC affiliate was put under blackout restrictions in the area.
“I just think that it’s sending the wrong message,” Pignatelli said. “I hope that our federal delegation will finally step up to the plate, recognize these problems and try to correct them. They sadly were nonresponsive during the channel 5 blackout six months ago. I hope they’ll step up to the plate this time.”
In an email to WAMC, Massachusetts U.S. Senator EdwardMarkey's office writes he, Senator Elizabeth Warren and Congressman Richard Neal were writing Time Warner to urge it to reverse its decision. The email added the federal delegation continues to talk and meet with the company to ensure a positive outcome to the situation. Markey was a Democratic representative in the House when President Bill Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act in 1996 which led to the deregulation of broadcasting and telecommunications markets. Pignatelli says the decision is based on money, not customer value.
“The New England Cable Network is the last link to news around New England and outside of Berkshire County,” he said. “To lose that…we might as well just annex to New York because that’s what I think Time Warner wants us to do.”
