WHDH-TV today filed a lawsuit against Comcast over its loss of the NBC network affiliation set to take place in January 2017.
The station will be holding an all-hands meeting with employees today at 3pm to discuss their positions.
The lawsuit pretty much follows the complatins that WHDH owner Edmund Ansin had in January when NBC officially announced that they were launching NBC Boston. NBC says that they have plans to address the signal issue if NBC is broadcast on WNEU-TV, although they have not yet released what those plans are.
Sources inside WHDH tell New England One that management there is convinced that they will win the lawsuit, and that they will still be the NBC affiliate after January 2017. We're told plans to operate the station without NBC, other than adding additional newscasts, aren't really being discussed because of this belief.
The following is the press release sent out by WHDH explaining their position.
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Today WHDH-TV Channel 7 filed suit against Comcast in federal court in Boston. Channel 7’s claims are based upon Comcast’s January announcement that it intends to terminate its 22-year relationship with WHDH as NBC’s Boston affiliate at the end of 2016 and make its cable station New England Cable News the home of its new Boston station. At the same time Comcast announced that it would broadcast its new station over the air from WNEU-TV, a Telemundo station located in Merrimack, New Hampshire. WNEU’s signal does not reach nearly 4 million greater Boston residents who currently receive WHDH’s signal, including residents in primarily minority communities such as Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan and Brockton. Most of those residents would have to purchase cable service from Comcast if they want to keep receiving NBC programming.
When Comcast, the largest cable company in the world, acquired NBC in 2011, there was widespread concern about the impact this unprecedented accumulation of power in the television industry would have on viewers and other market participants. Particularly in markets like Boston, where Comcast is the dominant cable provider, citizen groups, industry participants and government agencies expressed concern that Comcast would seek to leverage its cable holdings and in the process degrade its broadcasting presence and diminish the important public service role that broadcast television stations historically have played. To address those concerns, Comcast promised its NBC affiliates (including WHDH) that it would negotiate affiliate extensions in good faith such that over the air access would be maintained, and cable interests would not influence those negotiations. As part of the FCC’s approval of Comcast’s acquisition of NBC, the FCC adopted these same conditions in order to protect the public interest.
WHDH believes that Comcast has violated these conditions. It also believes that Comcast’s actions violate Massachusetts law prohibiting unfair and deceptive business practices. Finally, WHDH believes that Comcast’s actions violate federal and state antitrust laws because they have enabled Comcast to increase its monopoly power in the Boston television market, and the resulting decrease in competition will harm consumers, advertisers and other broadcasters.
In its suit WHDH is seeking an injunction and an order requiring Comcast to comply with its obligations under its agreement with WHDH and the FCC order. WHDH will also seek damages.
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We reached out to NBC for comment, and a NBCUniversal spokesperson told New England One the following:
"NBC has had a long, mutually successful relationship with Sunbeam, which is expiring under the agreed-upon terms of WHDH’s affiliation contract at the end of the year. We are disappointed that Sunbeam has chosen to file this meritless lawsuit, and that it has chosen to do so by constructing baseless claims against our parent company. Rest assured that we will continue to deliver Boston-area viewers the best local news, weather and information along with the NBC news, sports and entertainment programming they already enjoy. Indeed, with the extensive investments we’ve made and will continue to make in our over-the-air service, we will have the best television broadcast offerings in the region, with two major broadcast network stations – NBC Boston and Telemundo Boston – that can reach over-the-air viewers throughout the Boston region in both English and Spanish, as well as a 24x7 cable news network – necn – that reaches viewers throughout New England."
If history serves as a guide, Edmund Ansin also filed a lawsuit against NBC when they took their affiliation away from WSVN-TV in Miami. He eventually lost that lawsuit.
The losers in this situation are most certainly the employees at WHDH who face an uncertain future at the station. Which is why they are starting to leave.
You can read the entire complaint in WHDH-TV vs. Comcast Corp. here.
