Tag Archives: Time Warner

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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.”

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It took a mad outbreak of Linsanity to rouse a fickle and passive segment of New York’s sports fandom to the reality they can’t watch Knick games on TV.  This is actually good news.  It likely will increase pressure on the MSG network to restore its signal to the homes of 2.31 million Time Warner Cable customers.

MSG’s failure to extract a sizable rate increase from Time Warner led to the blackout of Knicks, Rangers, Islanders and Devils games the first of the year.

Thirty-percent of the MSG Network’s 7.7 million subscribers get MSG through Time Warner.  Some have no choice in signal carrier.  Many city dwellers can’t get DirecTV because of building bans on dishes.

It was only after Jeremy Lin’s game-winning three-point shot at the buzzer in Toronto Tuesday night that frustration over the blackout went from a murmur to a shout.

Both sides in the dispute refuse to disclose the per-subscriber rate they’re aiming for to make a deal.  The secretive aspect of this is maddening to the guy at home trying to understand what’s at stake.  The two corporations at odds here keep channel rates quiet to protect the multitude of carriage deals each already have on the books – plus the ones they’ll make down the road.

Representatives from both Time Warner and MSG appeared on Francesa’s show Wednesday.  While only three of every ten MSG homes are dark, the impact is much bigger if you leave outer-fringe markets out of the equation.

Francesa said going in it would be futile to broker a deal on-air but he likely couldn’t have anticipated what a complete dolt the Time Warner rep turned out to be.  Director of Communications Eric Mangan came on the program via telephone and failed to expound on the stalemate beyond basic talking points advanced in a press release issued when the signal was yanked six weeks ago.

Ninety minutes later, MSG sent its president of media Mike Bair into the WFAN studio.  The appearance of an articulate, high-ranking executive on the show stood in stark contrast to a Time Warner flack stammering through a slogan-filled crib sheet.

Bair rejected Mangan’s claim that MSG is demanding a 53-percent increase in the per-subscriber rate set in the now-expired deal struck in 2005.  Like Mangan, Bair wouldn’t tell Mike what the monthly rate was when MSG turned off the signal.  All Bair would say is that the rate MSG is seeking from Time Warner is no more than what it’s getting currently from other providers like DirecTV and Comcast.

After it was over, Francesa was exasperated.  While he believes the onus in this dispute is on Time Warner because it’s the entity that has a direct business relationship with the home subscriber, Francesa feels like it‘s difficult to know who‘s telling the truth on where the negotiations stand.  “You put ‘em on to see if you can nudge the two sides to the middle.  I understand they’re both full of beans.  It’s not pleasant.”

I actually lean toward thinking the burden is on MSG right now.  Bair was awfully smug in saying Linsanity and the success of the Rangers gives his side leverage.  Why the boast when genuine fans are getting screwed?  A Thursday report written by the Post’s Claire Atkinson says MSG is in fact seeking a 53-percent hike on top of a current rate in the neighborhood of four bucks a head.  I get the sense MSG is playing a brand of hardball that has taken this disagreement to a place beyond one that leads to compromise.  The tens of millions of dollars gained annually from an extreme position needs to move to the middle.  It’s unfortunate we don’t know what the middle is.  Bair needs to square his claim MSG will give Time Warner a deal at or below terms it has with DirecTV and/or Comcast with what is now a protracted and painful period of zero progress in negotiations.

A few other bits:

-Mangan said there will be no cable bill rebate for MSG’s lost time on Time Warner.  He also said the number of customers who cancelled service as a result of the dispute is “insignificant.”

-Citing data from the research firm SNL Kagan, Marketwatch reporter Sam Mamudi says MSG is paid an average of $2.63 for each of its 7.7 million total subscribers.   To reconcile this information with Richard Sandomir saying the number is $4.91 (same source), I can only assume the latter figure applies to the rate for those in New York City.  It’s likely that different regions on the Time Warner service map pay different rates depending on the level of demand for New York sports.  The half-dozen or so news outlets that have attempted to report numbers would lead one to believe MSG was getting four bucks and change per NYC subscriber before the first of the year – and wants at least another buck or so a month going forward.  Should MSG win its fight with Time Warner, it’s possible their per-subscriber rate would exceed what ESPN gets from cable and satellite firms (estimated to be about $5 a month).