Ameritech Files Cable Complaint

Ameritech Corp. and its programming venture, Americast, filed a regulatory complaint Thursday accusing Continental Cablevision Inc. and Time Warner Inc. of refusing to let them distribute two popular channels in the Detroit area because of an exclusive contract.

The complaint, filed with the Federal Communications Commission, alleges that Continental and Time Warner are violating a 1992 cable law that requires programmers to sell to all TV service providers to guarantee consumers access.

Continental said its exclusive contracts with Home Box Office and Cinemax are grandfathered by the 1992 law.

It is unclear how frequently such a situation will crop up in the newly competitive cable world, where telephone companies and satellite providers are vying to provide TV service in competition with cable operators.

Cable operators now face competition in only an estimated 5% of their markets.

Americast and Ameritech said such exclusivity practices will hurt their ability to compete in cable.

“We are aggressively marketing cable services in Detroit and are handicapped without two of the most important services,” said Dave Onak, a spokesman for Ameritech, which hopes to offer cable service to its local phone customers in Detroit and Chicago suburbs and perhaps in Columbus, Ohio, by this summer.

Americast is packaging the programming to be offered by phone companies including Ameritech, BellSouth Corp., SBC Communications Inc. and GTE Corp. in a consortium with Walt Disney Co.

Satellite services such as DirectTv said they have not experienced problems in signing up programmers.

In fact, most cable programmers have seen alternative satellite and wireless technologies as a boon, providing extra revenue and an easy way to build their subscribers.

But Ameritech said Continental’s contract with HBO specifically prohibits the programmer from licensing to any other competitor that builds a wired cable system.

The phone company said it is unclear how many such contracts exist, although those that were grandfathered under the law have mostly expired or will in the next year. Most cable contracts run for five years.