Monday Business Roundup
Fans Stiff-Armed in NFL-Cable Dispute
By Richard Martin, 11-26-07
There’s a big NFL game this Thursday night pitting the 10-1 Dallas Cowboys against the Green Bay Packers, who sport the same record. But plenty of fans in the Mountain West won’t get it to see it, because their cable provider doesn’t include the NFL Network, which will broadcast the content, in its basic cable package.
The football channel reaches most of its 35 million viewers via the two major satellite providers, DirecTV and Dish Network (owned by Englewood, Colo.-based EchoStar).
The dustup between the NFL, which owns the NFL Network, and the major cable providers including Comcast, has brought to a boil the long-simmering dispute between proponents of bundled cable service – where you pay for a big package of channels, only a few of which you actually watch – and “a la carte” service, in which consumers would choose, and pay only for, the stations they actually want to see. New York Times columnist Joe Nocera picked apart the argument for a la carte service in a piece this weekend that said, “Instead of reducing prices, à la carte would cause cable bills to rise for most people. And it would cause many channels to go out of business.”
The fight also occurs against a backdrop in which many cable and satellite TV providers are hurting. EchoStar said it added only 110,000 new subscribers in the third quarter, less than half the total for the same period a year ago. And Comcast and TimeWarner each lost thousands of viewers.
“As consumers tighten their belts because of higher oil prices, housing woes and other economic turmoil, the cable- and satellite-TV industries are likely to feel the pinch,” reports Kimberly Johnson of The Denver Post.
In other business news:
-- The value of conservation easements issued in Colorado has skyrocketed in the last six years, largely as a result of new state laws creating a market in the tax credits. Now, the state is investigating whether the easements – which allow landowners to get tax credit by agreeing to limits on development on their land – are being abused. “Last week, the Colorado Division of Real Estate issued about 30 subpoenas,” the Post reports, to people involved with a series of easement deals on five ranches through an Arvada land trust.
-- Streambed and riverside development in the state moved haltingly forward last week as local officials considered plans for new in-stream projects. In Palisade, on the Colorado River, town administrator Tim Sarmo is hoping to build a $2 million whitewater kayak park just belowthe mouth of De Beque Canyon, but the necessary permits have not been forthcoming. In downtown Durango, meanwhile, a moratorium on riverfront development is on the verge of expiring, and city council members have approved a slate of new laws “they hope will open the river corridor to controlled urban renewal,” reports The Durango Herald.
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