Time Warner Wins Ruling in New York Cable Dispute

Time Warner Inc. on Wednesday won a major court battle when a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction that stops New York City from airing Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News on a city-run cable television channel.

U.S. District Judge Denise Cote ruled that the city had violated Time Warner’s 1st Amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution by trying to force the company to carry the Fox programming and interfering with its editorial discretion.

She said Mayor Rudolph Giuliani planned to air Fox News on a city-run cable channel in order to pressure Time Warner to carry it on a commercial station. Time Warner provides cable service to 1.1 million customers in New York.

The order also prevents New York City from airing Bloomberg Information Television on a city-run channel.

“Time Warner has a right under the 1st Amendment to be free from government interference with its programming decisions,” Cote wrote.

“I find that the city . . . has acted to compel Time Warner to add Fox News to its system of commercial channels and that these actions have had a direct, immediate and chilling effect on Time Warner’s exercise of its constitutionally protected editorial discretion.”

Cote also said the city’s efforts to air commercial 24-hour news programs on so-called PEG channels designated for public, educational and governmental use was unprecedented and never contemplated by Congress in the Federal Cable Act.

New York City said it would appeal.

“The city of New York is going to be able to make new law about just what appropriate use of a PEG channel is,” said Paul Crotty, an attorney for the city.

The National Cable Television Assn., however, praised the decision. “We’re pleased the federal court has reaffirmed Congress’ decision that city governments may not impose their specific programming choices on cable operators,” an association statement said.

The dispute centers on the role of the city’s five stations, known as Crosswalks. Giuliani decided to place the new 24-hour Fox programming without commercials on one of the Crosswalks channels after Time Warner rejected it. He also planned to run Bloomberg’s news programming.

Time Warner sued the city, alleging that Giuliani was acting on behalf of Murdoch’s News Corp., which owns the New York Post and WNYW-TV. It said in its suit that the city was acting as Murdoch’s “latest political puppet.”

“This case concerns the power of a city to influence, control and even coerce the programming decision of an operator of a cable television system. It therefore goes to the heart of 1st Amendment concerns,” Cote wrote in her 106-page ruling.