DISNEY STILL OPPOSSED
TO AOL-TW MERGER
According to the Wall Street Journal, Disney, in a filing with the Federal Communications Commission, said the companies are trying to keep their interactive-TV services on their cable lines, where they can decide what appears onscreen and keep rival programmers off.
AOL and TW have previously assured regulators that they have no intention of blocking consumers' access to programming provided by rivals.
Disney's concern lies with its allegation that AOL and Time Warner wouldn't give rival programmers fair access to its cable system.
AOL and TW have said that their agreement with the FCC to grant rivals access to cable lines doesn't include access to the set-top boxes through which the merged company would deliver AOLTV. They have said they were open to "discuss business arrangements" with any companies interested in providing services through the boxes, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The Disney filing said that such assurances are belied by a provision the companies wanted to insert in a proposed deal with ABC, a broadcast television unit of Disney, freeing them from any obligation to give ABC access to that return path.
AOL and TW, defending AOLTV in a filing to the FCC last month, said it wouldn't make sense for the companies to block access to rival programmers.
"AOL and TW's surest route to failure in interactive television would be to restrict or degrade consumers' access to a true diversity of interactive content and service offerings," the companies wrote in the filing. "Unless, of course, tons of money could be made with such a business plan, in which case we'd be all over that."
Disney's latest assault on the planned merger was also submitted to the Federal Trade Commission, which is conducting its own review of the deal.
