Time Warner Cable and the NFL Network also are no closer to a deal than they were about a month ago, when a state legislative committee held a hearing in Raleigh on the issue.

Time Warner says the NFL has not agreed to any of its three offers: to put the NFL Network on a more expensive digital sports tier rather than on basic cable, so only those who want it pay for it; to make the NFL Network available as its own tier to anyone who wants to pay extra for it; to sell only the NFL Network's live games on a pay-per-view basis, with the league setting the price and keeping all of the revenue.

"They won't talk with us about a carriage deal other than on the terms they want to dictate to us -- just as the MASN arbitrator found they wouldn't talk with MASN about a deal," NFL spokesman Joe Browne said Tuesday.

Like MASN, the NFL wants its network made available to a broader audience on basic cable. If it did so, Time Warner has said, it would have to raise basic cable bills.