Time Warner sues to keep satellite TV honest

A lawsuit was filed late last week that has Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) suing DirecTV Group, Inc. (NYSE:DTV) over deceptive trade practices and false advertising about the NFL Network. The suit filed in Manhattan, with unspecified damages sought, claims that DirecTV was trying to lure away customers from Time Warner Cable by lying about accessibility of pro football broadcasts in local markets.

It cited newspaper advertisements claiming that the Dec. 30 game between the New York Giants and the Washington Redskins will not be available to 4.4 million people around New York unless they join the DirecTV network, yet Time Warner Cable said the game will be available to its customers in New York on WNBC-TV regardless of if they have DirecTV or not. Time Warner also notes that the same sort of trickery has occurred in Green Bay, Cincinnati and elsewhere.

The suit also says that the satellite provider used ads with Jessica Simpson and William Shatner saying that HD TV was better on satellite, when both can be the same. DirecTV apparently ran these ads after agreeing to change them.

What Time Warner didn't say was that if this news broke simultaneously on cable and on satellite TV, you would have gotten the news 3 to 5 seconds faster via cable than via satellite. Time Warner Cable should do a commercial showing a "Bandwidth Taste Test" with a recording of a live broadcast on cable versus on satellite. If you are a trader in the markets or involved in the media, you cannot afford that delay in satellite TV.

This suit will almost certainly not involve monetary awards for Time Warner, but it shows that Satellite TV may have to use a little trickery to win cable subscribers these days.