Sunbeam's Ansin Hopes for Quick Agreement With DirecTV

By John Eggerton
( Broadcasting & Cable )
published

Sunbeam President Edmund Ansin gave no assurances to
Washington that there will be no Super Bowl blackout, though he did say that he
is in negotiations with DirecTV and hopes to finalize an agreement
"quickly."

That came in a letter to Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) dated
Jan. 24, a copy of which was supplied to B&C/Multi.

Kerry had asked both Ansin and DirecTV President Michael
White to publicly declare there would be no blackout of the Super Bowl (the
Patriots are playing) in Boston if a retrans deal were not reached by Feb. 5.

In a brief response, Ansin said he, like everyone at his
Boston stations, was "delighted" the Patriots were in the Super Bowl
and wanted all their viewers to see the game, hoped to finalize a deal so that
would be the case and thanked the senator for his concern.

John Eggerton
John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.