Without offering a direct explanation to affected viewers, MSG has restored its signal to the homes of 2.31 million Time Warner Cable customers.
It was about 6 PM Friday when MSG and MSG Plus came to life on my television screen.
MSG had withheld its programming from Time Warner customers for 48 days. The two entities had disagreed over the per-subscriber rate for MSG’s exclusive local television broadcasts of the Knicks, Rangers, Islanders and Devils.
During the blackout, Time Warner and MSG engaged in a stubborn game of chicken. Both sides admit there was no substantive effort to solve the impasse until the middle of last week.
For six weeks, hundreds of thousands of sports fans were left in the dark as a dispute between rich corporations drifted along with no end in sight.
And then Jeremy Lin came along. The scintillating Knickerbocker win streak that directly coincided with Lin’s unexpected emergence generated a level of city-wide excitement rare for a sport that isn’t football or baseball. Linsanity caused the casual sports fan to look for the game on the tube. When it wasn’t there, the hostile reaction from this beneath-the-surface fandom pushed the execs presiding over this rate fight into action.
It’s as simple as that.
Linsanity got so insane, MSG and Time Warner started looking ridiculous being party to the throwing of cold water on the hottest story in sports. They had no choice but to call a truce.
We don’t know what kind of deal was struck. Both sides released the same bland statement praising politicians who deserve one one-hundredth of the credit Lin should get. Let’s assume Time Warner and MSG met somewhere in the middle and it’ll lead to an expensive cable bill going up a buck or two a month. They could have done the same thing 48 days ago.
Little about what went on behind the scenes leading up to a compromise has made the news. David Stern made a phone call. That was nice of him.
The only bit of intrigue linked to coverage of this story came immediately after Richard Sandomir of the Times broke news of the tentative agreement on his newspaper’s web site. Shortly thereafter, CNBC’s Darren Rovell “confirmed” Sandomir’s scoop via Twitter and on the air.
Rovell’s regurgitation of Sandomir’s reporting prompted an angry outburst by Sandomir on Twitter. Said Sandomir to Rovell: “Gee, thanks! You confirmed a solid story that didn’t need your confirming. You’re so keen.”
While Rovell gave a full tip of the cap to Sandomir for being the first to report the news, his use of the word “confirm” implied it wasn’t authentic until it passed through Rovell’s own journalistic strainer.
“I don’t want ur credit if it means you ‘confirmed’ it; that’s gauche; means my work needs your imprimatur. It doesn’t,” said Sandomir. “Sounds like I need a stamp of approval.”
Sandomir says his Dick Ebersol retirement scoop last May got the same bush league treatment from Rovell.
For a veteran Times newsman to lash out publicly about a young rival’s reporting style is unusual. But when the fast-moving Rovell spooned out the MSG/Time Warner news to his 183-thousand Twitter followers (Sandomir has 10-thousand), you can kinda understand how it may have felt like theft to Sandomir. His original reporting should have been what’s called “re-tweeted” under his avatar rather than repeated under Rovell’s.
Rovell didn’t expect to get called on it. He defended his “confirmation” of breaking news and was surprised at the fuss. “For the record, I have great respect for Rich Sandomir. When I was coming up in this business, he was the guy I wanted to be.”