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Posted By	Discussion Topic: everyone must read (yes netork)
TeenWeek what's a status?	posted on 04-11-2002 @ 9:44 AM
O&A Board Regular Registered: Oct. 00	YES Premium Fight Is Basic Business By Steve Zipay STAFF WRITER April 11, 2002 Even for cable, it's location, location, location ... The vast majority of Cablevision subscribers on Long Island have to pay extra to watch MSG Network or Fox Sports New York, the cable homes of six of the nine major pro teams in the metropolitan area. But the majority of the 2-million-plus Cablevision subscribers in New Jersey, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Westchester and Fairfield Counties receive those channels as part of family basic packages. The roots of the disparity stretch to 1988, long before Cablevision owned Madison Square Garden. Before then, Knicks and Rangers games on the MSG Network were on basic service in much of the tri-state area. In Cablevision homes, there was no separate channel for MSG Network programming. Instead, Cablevision would cherry-pick certain Knicks and Rangers games for SportsChannel New York, which it owned. In 1988, however, when MSG Network signed a $486-million deal to acquire the rights to Yankees games for the next 12 years, the Garden wanted the Yankees to be on basic service along with the Knicks and Rangers. Cablevision balked, and wanted to put MSG on a premium tier, like SportsChannel. After a pitched battle that resulted in a blackout of Yankees games for half of the 1989 season, MSG was placed on basic everywhere but in Cablevision homes on Long Island and certain sections of Connecticut, where customers need to purchase MSG or Fox Sports New York, or both. "It was the best deal we could get at the time," recalled Bob Gutkowski, the former president of the Garden, who helped broker the arrangement. Long Island was Cablevision's main territory at the time - Brooklyn and the Bronx weren't wired - and because of that grandfather status, Cablevision would never put those channels on basic on Long Island. "It would cost them too much in revenue," Gutkowski said. Cablevision declined to say how many subscribers in Brooklyn, the Bronx, New Jersey, and Westchester and Fairfield Counties receive MSG and Fox Sports New York on family basic. A spokesman said only that "for the majority of our three million subscribers, those channels are provided on an a la carte basis." Cablevision, which now owns the Garden and MSG Network, takes a different tack when it comes to selling its programming to other cable systems in the tri-state area. It demands that other cable operators, such as Time Warner and Comcast, carry MSG and Fox Sports New York on basic. Time Warner and Comcast have said they would rather put MSG and Fox Sports New York on their own tier, but are forced by Cablevision to carry them on expanded basic. "It's exactly what they don't want YES to do," said Leo Hindery, the chairman of Yankees Entertainment & Sports network, the Yankee-owned network that has the TV rights to Yankees games and has pressed Cablevision to carry the games on family basic. "But that's the way the Dolans do their business. When it's their programming, they want it on basic." Cablevision could have provided Yankees games on the MSG Network this season - and the company could have avoided the controversial impasse with the YES Network - had it agreed to a new contract offered by the team last year. Instead, Cablevision chairman Charles Dolan turned down a Yankee offer of a 10-year TV rights extension that would have cost $1.3 billion upfront or $2.4 billion over the life of the deal. Since 1989, Cablevision had been paying the Yankees between $40 million and $50 million a year to show the games on MSG, and Dolan termed the new price "exorbitant." In retrospect, the refusal laid the groundwork for not only a tremendous public uproar from Yankees fans from Montauk to Mamaroneck, but major changes at MSG Network. This season, when it was clear that the company needed to bolster MSG's programming, it pulled 50 Mets games from Fox Sports New York - which televised 100 last season - and placed them on MSG. That infuriated subscribers who were Mets fans and who, in order to see those games this season, had to add MSG. Almost two weeks ago, Cablevision agreed to provide those subscribers with MSG for the rest of the year for free.
goatweed I've Got A Vagina With Teeth. G.O.O.F.B.A.H.G.S. Dragoon Battalion My friends call me Weed	posted on 04-11-2002 @ 10:18 AM
O&A Board Regular Registered: Jan. 01	And people wonder why I am always praising hot-boxes... The line between fantasy and reality is the same as that between sanity and insanity...which side of the line are you on? You can reach me through AIM or email. Feel free to contact me if you have any board questions, techie (PC) questions, or even if you just wanna chat and be bestest of friends. Sorry, you are not an instant winner. Please try again.

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