It's Official : MSG, FoxSports NY off Time Warner

[dkennedy]

City council hearing set on Mets cable tiff

BY Steve Zipay
Staff Writer, Newsday

April 27, 2005

A City Council committee has scheduled a hearing on Tuesday, May 3rd to further discuss the dispute between Cablevision and Time Warner Cable that has blacked out Mets games to 2.4 million Time Warner subscribers, primarily in Manhattan and Queens.

The council's Zoning and Franchises Committee, chaired by Councilman Tony Avella (D-Bayside), heard from top executives of each company at an April 18 session.

Executives from the companies and subscribers have been invited to attend the hearing, set for 9:30 a.m. at City Hall.

[dkennedy]

April 28, 2005

By Barry Lewis
Editor, Times Herald-Record

I'm tied to cable, and they know it

Twenty years ago I got a call from a guy at the local cable company.

He said some of the neighbors on our road had contacted him about getting cable. Was I interested?

In those days we didn't have too many houses on our Sullivan County road, so the cable company was going to charge us to run a line off the main road to our houses. The more of us who got cable, the cheaper it would be.

He told us we'd also have to pay for the monthly cable service. But, he pitched to us, think of what we'd be getting: lots of movies. Lots of sports. And great reception.

I asked how much we'd have to pay for the whole lot. He gave me a price. I long ago forgot the dollar amount, but not how crazy it would have been to accept.

Who needed cable?

I already had great reception, thanks to my 10-foot-tall Channel Master antenna with a booster.

I was picking up stations in Albany and Connecticut.
I had all the Mets games I could want on Channel 9.
And it was all for free.

At that time I considered cable a luxury – not a necessity.

A lot has changed in 20 years.

Channel Master is gone and so is my antenna. A storm a couple of years ago left it dangling from the roof, so we had no choice but to trash it.

Killed me.

Not that we were using it. By then, paying for television had become as much a fixture in our household budget as paying for food, heat and electricity.

And just as frustrating.

Also gone from the tube are my Mets.

Mets on free TV vanished as quickly as affordable tickets at Shea. But I paid for the tickets and paid to see them on cable because I'm a fan. That's the choice of us 2.4 million subscribers to Time Warner Cable who pay every month for the right to watch what once was free.

But these days, my choice to watch the Mets on cable has been taken away. Blacked out.

You see, Cablevision owns Madison Square Garden, and thus, controls the MSG and Fox Sports channels in New York, which carry all but a few dozen of the Mets' 162 games.

Cablevision wants to raise the fees that Time Warner pays to carry the channels. Cablevision says it's willing to negotiate. Time Warner says any increase would mean raising its fees to subscribers, and that's just not fair.

So Time Warner has pulled the plug on MSG and Fox Sports – thus, no Mets.

Who's right? What's fair?

I sure know it's not fair for me to be paying Time Warner monthly fees for basic service, standard service, as well as their franchise fee and FCC regulatory fee and be left to watch college sports.

They owe me a lot more than the $2 credit I'll get for each month the Mets are off their air.

And it sure ain't my fault Cablevision keeps wasting big bucks paying consistently losing Knicks' and Rangers' players.

Cablevision and I go way back.

I remember when the cable company first tried to convince folks to pay for television.

I lived on Long Island in the mid-1970s when Cablevision practically gave programming away. They had to.

Basic service got us HBO movies and HBO concerts. And plenty of sports.

I watched Walt "Clyde" Frazier and Earl "The Pearl" Monroe in their home whites from the magical world of Madison Square Garden. And the Rangers at the Garden. And the Nets with Julius Erving and the Islanders winning all those Stanley Cups from the Nassau Coliseum.

Aside from William Levit and his homes, I think cable was the other reason why folks moved out to the Island.

For a kid from Brooklyn who thought extra channels meant getting UHF and watching Lucha Libre (wrestling) on Channel 47 out of Newark – and followed the Knicks on Channel 9, trying to make out the players in their dark away uniforms on a fuzzy black and white set – having a cable box with a few dozen channels was unbelievable.

But now, it's payback time.

Cablevision wants my money for all the games they practically gave away. And Time Warner is getting me back for when I stuck with my Channel Master antenna.

Barry Lewis is Sullivan County editor for the Times Herald-Record. He can be reached at 794-3712 or at [e-mail].

[dkennedy]

Bill Seeks To End Time Warner, Cablevision Dispute

May 01, 2005

NY1 News

Two state lawmakers are putting financial pressure on Cablevision and Time Warner Cable to resolve a dispute that has blacked out Mets games for millions of subscribers.

For more than a month, Time Warner has not carried the MSG Network or Fox Sports New York, both of which are owned by Cablevision, because the two cable companies have failed to reach a deal on fees.

Now, legislation proposed by Assemblyman Michael Gianaris and state Senator Marty Golden would require each of the cable companies to pay 10 cents per day to each of the 2.4 million Time Warner customers who can't get Mets games. If the bill becomes law, it would cost each company $$240,000 a day.

Time Warner is already giving customers a $$2 rebate per month, between 6 and 7 cents a day.

Neither Time Warner nor Cablevision has commented on the lawmakers' proposal.

Cablevision wants to take the dispute to binding arbitration.

Time Warner Cable is the parent company of NY1.

[dkennedy]

Cable talks resume but foes stand firm

May 4, 2005

By FRANK LOMBARDI
DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU

The two sides in the cable-TV blackout of the Mets are finally negotiating again after nearly two months of finger-pointing and blame games.

That's the good news that representatives of the Madison Square Garden Network (MSGN) and Time Warner Cable announced yesterday at a hearing of the City Council's Zoning and Franchise Subcommittee.

But both sides appeared to be sticking to the miles-apart positions that began the blackout on March 7. That's when Time Warner stopped carrying the Mets games on its cable system, citing months of fruitless contract talks with MSGN, the Cablevision-owned programmer that has exclusive cable rights to Mets games.

The dispute has affected 2.4million Time Warner subscribers in the city and region, many of them die-hard Mets fans.

Testifying for MSGN, Kevin McGrath said the two sides began "discussions" recently and "will continue to be in discussion."

But he reiterated MSGN's stance that Mets games would not be broadcast until Time Warner Cable either agrees to binding arbitration or there is a new contract agreement.

"I'm not able to discuss what is being negotiated," McGrath told the subcommittee, chaired by Councilman Tony Avella (D-Queens).

Time Warner's contract with MSGN expired last year and the two sides had been operating on month-to-month agreements until MSGN shut off its programming spigot.

Testifying for Time Warner Cable, Harriet Novet, vice president for public affairs, said negotiations "are currently taking place at the highest levels of both companies."

But Novet continued to nix binding arbitration-in which a third party essentially imposes a new contract on the two sides. She repeated her company's call for mediation.

The Council has no immediate power to intervene, but Avella warned both sides that their exclusive cable franchises with the city end in 2008.

"As part of this renewal process, the Council can conduct a community needs assessment and also a review of the conduct of the operator," Avella pointedly told the two sides.

[dkennedy]

CORNERING CABLEVISION

May 4, 2005
New York Post

PIAZZA HELD HOSTAGE, DAY 31

Don't get your hopes up, Mets fans — but television relief may be in sight.

Albany is threatening to jump into the middle of that standoff between Time Warner Cable and Cablevision that has kept the Mets off of 2.4 million New Yorkers' TV sets.

And yesterday, the City Council's second hearing on the issue in three weeks concluded with the news that the companies were back at the bargaining table.

Bottom line: Pressure works.

State Sen. Martin Golden (R-Brooklyn) and Assemblyman Michael Gianaris (D-Queens) are drafting a law that hits both Cablevision and Time Warner with a penalty of 10 cents a customer for each day the sports networks are off the air.

That'll add up — to nearly $500,000 a day, or more than $14 million a month.

Sure, it's a gross overreach — and probably illegal under federal law — but what the heck: No politician ever lost votes by kicking Cablevision around.

Meanwhile, City Councilman Tony Avella of Queens is on much firmer legal ground in his effort to persuade Cablevision to do the right thing.

Avella, who chairs the council's Zoning and Franchises Committee, warns that it's in the "best interest of all New Yorkers" for Cablevision to take Time Warner's offer.

Left unsaid: It is especially in Cablevision's "best interest" to get Mike Piazza and the rest of the Mets back on Time Warner's system. Sure, Cablevision's franchises with New York City don't expire until 2008. But the city can start the renegotiation process as early as 36 months out.

So, as early as this fall, an assessment can begin as to whether Cablevision has handled its franchises responsibly.

Forgive us while we suppress a chuckle. This is, after all, the second time in three years that Cablevision has blacked out a New York baseball team in significant parts of the city — the company kept the YES network dark for all of 2002. Some ask if the company is capable of ever acting in the city's "best interest."

Cablevision has a choice.

It can give Mets fans their team back.

Or it can start thinking about what it will be like to lose its franchises in the media capital of the world.

Toss Albany's "solution" into the mix, and the message is clear.

Free the Mets.

Or else.