DIRECTV Says Pay TV Rivals “Have No Interest In Paying For Time Warner Cable’s Excess”

[dfergie]

The company behind SportsNet LA isn’t getting any sympathy from the country’s top satellite TV provider regarding the impasse over Dodgers telecasts in Los Angeles. DirecTV issued an unambiguous statement today in the wake of FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler blaming Time Warner Cable for the mess and threatening to take action if it isn’t resolved soon. And the satcaster believes it speaks for a number of pay TV rivals: “We agree with Congressman Sherman that any loyal Dodger fans deserve the opportunity to see games,” DirecTV said, “yet not at the expense of the millions of other AT&T U-verse, Charter Communications, Cox Communications, DIRECTV, Dish Network, Mediacom, Suddenlink Communications, Verizon FiOS and other families who have little or no interest in paying for Time Warner Cable’s excess. Rather than force everyone to bail Time Warner Cable out, the simplest solution is to enable only those who want to pay to see the remaining Dodgers games to do so at the price Time Warner Cable wants to set.”

Announced early last year, SportsNet LA was born out of the 25-year, multibillion-dollar deal Time Warner Cable inked with the Dodgers for broadcast rights. Sources say TWC is seeking $4-$5 per subscriber per month for channel in the first year of the contract. Roughly 70% of LA remains without SportsNet including DirecTV, which has close to a 30% share of the market with more than 1.2 million subs.

deadline.com

 

[dishcomm]

The company behind SportsNet LA isn’t getting any sympathy from the country’s top satellite TV provider regarding the impasse over Dodgers telecasts in Los Angeles. DirecTV issued an unambiguous statement today in the wake of FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler blaming Time Warner Cable for the mess and threatening to take action if it isn’t resolved soon. And the satcaster believes it speaks for a number of pay TV rivals: “We agree with Congressman Sherman that any loyal Dodger fans deserve the opportunity to see games,” DirecTV said, “yet not at the expense of the millions of other AT&T U-verse, Charter Communications, Cox Communications, DIRECTV, Dish Network, Mediacom, Suddenlink Communications, Verizon FiOS and other families who have little or no interest in paying for Time Warner Cable’s excess. Rather than force everyone to bail Time Warner Cable out, the simplest solution is to enable only those who want to pay to see the remaining Dodgers games to do so at the price Time Warner Cable wants to set.”

Announced early last year, SportsNet LA was born out of the 25-year, multibillion-dollar deal Time Warner Cable inked with the Dodgers for broadcast rights. Sources say TWC is seeking $4-$5 per subscriber per month for channel in the first year of the contract. Roughly 70% of LA remains without SportsNet including DirecTV, which has close to a 30% share of the market with more than 1.2 million subs.

deadline.com

A serious miscalculation on the parts of both the LA Dodgers organization and Time Warner Cable

 

[Tampa8]

Congrats to DirectTV for this statement.

 

[joed32]

Time Warner made a bad deal that they thought would make them a lot of money and it fell flat. I hope no one bails them out and the government should stay out of it.

 

[texasbrit]

Agree. They made a bad deal and now they want everyone in the Dodgers viewing area to pay for it, even if they are not interested in the team.

 

[dfergie]

Do The Dodgers Have To Step In To The SportsNet LA Distribution Negotiations?
That may be the only way to break the impasse between Time Warner Cable‘s SportsNet LA, which controls the team’s TV rights, and pay TV distributors, DirecTV CEO Michael White said today. His comment followed a conference call this morning where TWC CFO Arthur Minson urged analysts to “assume we do not sign additional affiliate agreements for the Dodgers network this year.” Indeed he helped them to compute the potential impact, saying that the lack of an agreement could shave 50 basis points [or 0.5%] from TWC’s expected revenue growth this year and 125 basis points [or 1.25%] from its expected cash flow growth.
White said, in a separate meeting with analysts, that he feels no business pressure to back down from his view that SportsNet’s just too expensive with terms for about $5 per subscriber per month. Even without Dodgers games ”we’re actually positive net adds” for subscriptions in the LA area in the three months ending in June. Now he has little hope of a resolution “without the active and constructive participation of the ownership of the Dodgers.” White says that in June his company made an offer that would have given the team more than it collected from all distributors last year. “It was rejected out of hand by Time Warner Cable.”
He won’t back down because the terms that TWC accepted to handle the Lakers and Dodgers TV rights “creates stratospheric pricing…If you did it for all of the sports team you’d be at $26 per subscriber per month in the bill. That’s a huge tax, particularly on the many households that don’t watch sports.”

deadline.com

 

[osu1991]

Hopefully Directv holds out until TWC accepts alacarte only for the RSN's. Then starts to apply that to every market.

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[whitewolf8214]

Time Warner Cable feeling ill effects of Dodgers channel dispute http://www.latimes.com/entertainmen...time-warner-cable-dodgers-20140801-story.html

 

[Big Dawg 23]

This reminds me of when the Twins launched Victory Sportsnetwork. When it came to carrying the channel it was mostly small cable systems. About six weeks into the season they pulled the plug and signed with Fox Sports North.


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[whitewolf8214]

DirecTV and Time Warner Cable still sparring in California
Aug 18 2014, 11:17 ET

The battle between DirecTV (DTV) and Time Warner Cable (TWC +0.2%) on the West Coast has spilled over into football.
DirecTV hasn't signed a deal to add Pac-12 football through Time Warner Cable's Sports Pass bundle for a reported price of $0.80 per subscriber.
The satellite operator's subscribers will only have access to nationally broadcast Pac-12 football games.
TWC and DirecTV are still in a stalemate over SportsNet LA which is the broadcaster of Los Angeles Dodgers baseball.

http://seekingalpha.com/news/194035...cable-still-sparring-in-california#email_link

 

[ejb1980]

DirecTV and Time Warner Cable still sparring in California
Aug 18 2014, 11:17 ET

The battle between DirecTV (DTV) and Time Warner Cable (TWC +0.2%) on the West Coast has spilled over into football.
DirecTV hasn't signed a deal to add Pac-12 football through Time Warner Cable's Sports Pass bundle for a reported price of $0.80 per subscriber.
The satellite operator's subscribers will only have access to nationally broadcast Pac-12 football games.
TWC and DirecTV are still in a stalemate over SportsNet LA which is the broadcaster of Los Angeles Dodgers baseball.

http://seekingalpha.com/news/194035...cable-still-sparring-in-california#email_link

Did I miss something? What does Time Warner's sports pass have to do with Directv carrying Pac12?

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[CK SatGuy]

Nothing. Just the fact that they're not carrying 2 RSNs in LA. Well, technically 10 since Pac-12 has like 8 different channels.