Fox near goal line
Network, affiliates close to NFL agreement
While the talks have dragged on far longer than expected, affiliate board chairman Murray Green said Wednesday he's optimistic about the prospects for an agreement.
"Are we close? Yeah, we're close," he told Daily Variety. "I hope the conference call ... can wind things up. Once we finish that, we can come up with a business agreement and discuss it with our affiliates.''
However, Green was quick to caution against assuming a deal will definitely be done today. "I've said (the two sides were close) before and nothing happened,'' he said.
Main obstacle
The main sticking point in the negotiations has been the affils' desire to have Fox guarantee longterm program exclusivity for the NFL and other broadcasts. Station owners fear Fox could use the introduction of digital TV to distribute the web's on-air product outside the usual affil distribution system.
During last month's affiliate meeting, Fox TV Chairman and CEO Chase Carey told stations the web had no plan to change its distribution system, and that they'd remain "the exclusive initial distributor of Fox product" (Daily Variety, June 5).
Still, the web has balked at making any sort of longterm commitment on exclusivity, saying there's no way to predict how the market might change in the next five years.
Just how the two sides will resolve the exclusivity dispute is not yet known, though insiders say a compromise on the issue is likely.
As for coin, affils will probably agree to chip in on the NFL package at least in part by giving back some local avails to the network.
