Steelers-Browns fans will miss game on Time Warner

Steelers-Browns fans will miss game on Time Warner

EDITOR:

The AFC North rivals Pittsburgh Steelers and Cleveland Browns meet in NFL Network’s next game Thursday night.

Unfortunately, Youngstown’s many NFL fans who subscribe to Time Warner Cable will be denied the Steelers-Browns game and other NFL games, including Colts-Jaguars on Dec. 17 and Cowboys-Saints on Dec. 19.

Time Warner is the only television provider among the top five in the U.S. which does not carry NFL Network.

Time Warner subscribers are also missing out on the NFL RedZone channel which whips viewers from game-to-game, showing every touchdown from every game on Sunday afternoon.

In addition, Time Warner blocks its customers from NFL On Demand, the popular sports video-on-demand product. NFL On Demand is offered free to NFL Network cable and telco subscribers and features 10-minute highlight packages of every NFL game the day after the game is played.

We in the NFL have been trying in recent months to reach an agreement with Time Warner. But Time Warner refuses to negotiate a fair deal to bring NFL Network, NFL RedZone and NFL On Demand to its customers.

NFL Network is in 53 million homes across the country through agreements with more than 300 cable operators, including four of the five largest television providers, Comcast, DirecTV, Dish Network and Cox.

STEVE BORNSTEIN

Los Angeles

X The writer is president and CEO of NFL Network.

Misplaced media priorities

EDITOR:

Your Dec. 2 editorial page cartoon of the electronic media ignoring President Obama’s announcement of plans for Afghanistan in favor of a focus on Tiger Woods was a scathingly accurate portrayal of our national press.

Apparently, manufacturing stories about the private affairs of sports stars is easier work than examining why we continue to give our sons and daughters up to war. Tiger’s troubles are his own. That he happens to be one of the greatest golfers in the sport does not make him fair game for salacious media coverage.

The loss of brave men and women to a war of questionable value is of national importance and deserves all the light the media can shed upon it. A minor automobile accident does not deserve coverage beyond the facts of what happened regardless of how many self-important talking heads try to make it so.

JIM CARTWRIGHT

Canfield

Let your fingers do the flying

EDITOR:

With all the attention given to global warming in the news lately, I was just wondering: Has anyone calculated the carbon footprints generated by the jet planes carrying the 20,000 or more delegates and their entourages to (and from) Copenhagen to finalize a climate change treaty?

Seems logical as well as economical to have conducted the meeting via video conferencing and kept the air a little cleaner.

DAVID RIEL

Poland