Business

Strike #2 at ESPN

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Sen. John McCain is a big fan of ESPN. He’s also its biggest enemy.

The Republican senator from Arizona singled out the cable sports powerhouse yesterday in his bid to give consumers the option to cherry-pick channels rather than pay for a programming package.

“Whether you watch ESPN or not, and admittedly I do all the time, all cable subscribers are forced to absorb this cost,” McCain said in introducing his a la carte legislation.

ESPN is the most expensive cable channel, costing cable and satellite-TV providers an average of $5 a month per subscriber.

McCain said the Television Consumer Freedom Act of 2013 is aimed at curbing rising cable bills, fueled in large part by the soaring cost of football games and other sports programming.

“It’s time consumers get something in return other than a higher bill at the end of the month,” McCain said.

ESPN hit back yesterday, arguing it delivers more consumer value than any other programmer and reaches 115 million fans a week across TV, Internet and mobile devices.

“No thoughtful analysis has ever established that consumers would benefit from a la carte — they will pay more and get less,” ESPN said in a statement.

This marks McCain’s second attempt at ending the practice of so-called channel bundling. Although a similar effort in 2006 went nowhere, McCain seems to believe that cash-strapped consumers are now at the breaking point with their cable bills.

The bill would also eliminate the sports blackout rule for events held in publicly financed stadiums.

McCain also threw a bone to Barry Diller’s controversial Web TV startup, Aereo. The bill would allow the regulators to revoke the license of any broadcaster who switches to cable.

Fox and CBS, which accuse Aereo of stealing their signals, have threatened such a move if the courts continue to side with Aereo. (News Corp. owns Fox and The Post.)