Cincinnati Reds games no longer available on FSN Tennessee / SportSouth

[ejb1980]

Some of that is backwards, although FS South and Sportsouth are essentially the same as MSG and MSG+, sister channels and then some. The Hockey is on FS South, the basketball is on SpSo, and the Braves are on both. The Bobcats are mirrored on FS South, but it has the SpSo logo. I think they do with the Bobcats what the OP wishes they still did with the Reds.

 

[chudgins63]

Since I started this thread last year, I'll chime inhere. As a D* subscriber since 1996 and a Nashville, TN resident since 1999 andlifelong Reds fan, I can tell you for certain that up until 2008, I had tosubscribe to SportsPak to receive Reds games on FSN Cincy channel 661 here inMiddle TN. Beginning with the 2008 season, the Reds expanded their coveragearea (and as I understand it from someone in the organization, realized theywere not being broadcast in areas they had access to and pressed FSN to provideReds games in those areas) to include our area of Middle TN where they provideda simulcast of FSN Cincy's coverage on FSN Tennessee channel 644 (-1) andSportSouth ALT channel 650 (-1). These channels didn't show all of the gamesbut about 80% of FSN Cincy's 150 game package. To get the other 30 games or soyou had to subscribe to SportsPak. The gamesthat weren't shown on FSN TN or SportSouth was typically due to programmingconflicts with the Nashville Predators or SEC baseball coverage in April andMay.

In the middle of last season, on or about July 5th, D* abruptly haltedprogramming of Reds games on FSN Tennessee channel 644 (-1) and SportSouth ALTchannel 650 (-1) with no explanation. Other carriers such as Comcrap continuedto carry Reds games on those channels and I confirmed this with friends whosubscribe to those other services. Since I'm probably one of the few aroundhere who actually cares, I began contacting D* and Fox Sports for anexplanation. The only answer I could get was from Fox Sports who said hiscontact at D* said the Reds games were taken off FSN TN and SportSouth toconserve satellite transponder space. While that may be an issue for D*, theangle I took with FSN was that they were not getting the coverage theynegotiated with D* no longer providing Reds programming in our area. It remainsto be seen if D* will pick back up the Reds on FSN TN/SportSouth for the 2013season and for sure you can get Sportspak to eliminate the mystery and probablybe able to negotiate a better deal but if D* is contractually obligated toprovide the programming in our area, we shouldn't have to pony up those extrafees - right??