Cablevision, GSN at Odds Over Timeliness Standard for Discrimination Complaints

Cablevision and the Game Show Network remain apart on what is the governing standard for filing a timely Communications Act Section 616 programming discrimination complaint, with Cablevision saying GSN is ignoring and misinterpreting precedent, in a reply brief posted Thursday in docket 12-122. A complaint is timely if it comes within a year of a discriminatory contract, offer of carriage or refusal to negotiate, not within a year of a notification to a cable operator of plans to file a Section 616 complaint, Cablevision said in its filing in support of its application for review of the Media Bureau 2012 order designating the GSN complaint for hearing (see 1612230049). The previous bureau decisions cited by GSN (see 1701120061) "are not precedent," Cablevision said, saying the network's pointing to the FCC decision in the Tennis Channel Section 616 complaint "is misplaced" since that decision was overturned by a federal appeals court and one judge's concurrence explicitly rejected the rationale now being cited by GSN. The cable operator that's now part of Altice also dismissed GSN's pointing to a pending Section 616 rulemaking, saying it demonstrates only "that GSN's preferred interpretation is not settled law." The programmer didn't comment.