YES Network/DirectTV?NY Yankees (1 Viewer)

[Scooter]

Aren't they going to CBS this year???? If so..then Dish will have the OTA games IF you live in the NYC area...and presumably in HD.

 

[Brian Sanger]

They're only carrying 30 games on WCBS this season...YES is carrying 100-something games and a handful will be on FOX's national game of the week telecasts...

 

[John_Bonner]

Another Yankees/YES update for Cablevison customers. It don't look good!

Crawdaddy:

That link seems to be for subscribers only. Can you summarize the situation?

Thanks.

 

[Daniel Kikin]

Basically, YES placed an ad in local papers yesterday like The Post telling Cablevision subscribers to switch to DirectTV if they want to see any Yankee games this year.

 

[Chris Harrison]

March 8, 2002

For Cablevision, Pressure to Carry YES

By RICHARD SANDOMIR

Topics

Alerts

New York Yankees

Here is the article from the NY Times:

If a feud between Cablevision and the YES Network, the Yankees' new television channel, is not resolved, three million households will not be able to watch Yankees games on local cable when the season starts on April 1.

YES, which will carry 130 Yankees games, wants to be carried on Cablevision's systems as a basic offering, like Lifetime or A&E. But Cablevision has refused, insisting that the fee for YES is too high and that the channel belongs on a premium tier, where only the customers who want it can buy it, the same way they would subscribe to HBO.

Pressure is building on Cablevision. On Tuesday, DirecTV began to solicit Cablevision customers through newspaper advertisements and door-to-door fliers to switch to its satellite-television service to watch the Yankees on YES.

And in an open letter to Cablevision subscribers published yesterday in several New York metropolitan-area newspapers, the top executive of YES wrote that the network was trying to fulfill its promise to fans that it be carried on basic, to the broadest possible cable audience. He portrayed Cablevision as standing in the way of that goal.

"The only place in the metropolitan area where you won't get the YES Network is on Cablevision systems, since Cablevision has so far refused to carry YES," Leo Hindery, YES's chief executive, wrote. He noted that the local Time Warner, Comcast and RCN cable systems, as well as DirecTV, had signed deals to carry YES in their basic packages.

Charles Schueler, a spokesman for Cablevision, said Hindery's letter was "a rather obvious attempt to put pressure on Cablevision to accept an expensive deal that is not in the interest of all of our customers."

A deal with Cablevision would be worth $72 million in gross revenues to YES, $20 million more than MSG, which Cablevision owns, paid for Yankees broadcasting rights last year. Depending on when and if a deal is made, YES could lose all or part of the $72 million.

And, without Cablevision's 3 million subscribers, YES would have to reduce its advertising rates.

Hindery said in a telephone interview that the open letter was not an attempt to put pressure on Cablevision, but said: "Opening day is coming ever closer and these contracts, if they materialize, are not easy. Maybe I pushed it off too long. I kept hoping it would materialize on its own. I have been forthcoming to them about the status of the other discussions. And we have no discussions under way."

But Schueler said the top programming officials at YES and Cablevision met last Friday. At the time, Cablevision made an offer. A YES spokesman said the meeting was inconsequential.

An impasse between YES and Cablevision was expected. Cablevision is unhappy that MSG lost the Yankees rights to YES, taking away its most potent programming. Hindery anticipated that negotiations with Cablevision would be difficult and that a deal would come only after Time Warner, Comcast and RCN were under contract. He said he believed Cablevision would fall into line after seeing the other cable companies agree to place YES on basic, and pay an estimated monthly fee of $2 a subscriber.

"This is exactly what we've predicted," said John Mansell, an analyst for Kagan World Media. "I wouldn't be surprised if Cablevision did not carry the Yankees at the beginning of the season."

YES's first regular-season Yankees game is April 1, followed by 23 more games during the month.

By holding to its position that YES should be on a premium tier, Cablevision is sticking to its reputation as a packager of cable programming services that stress choice — and its philosophy that basic cable is not designed to be all-inclusive.

On Cablevision's Long Island system, MSG and FSNY are not on basic — not in the $41.65-a-month Family Cable package (which includes A&E, CNN and ESPN) or in the $49.55 Optimum package.

On the $66 Optimum Preferred tier, if customers take the premium channels Flix, HBO and HBO2, they can choose MSG and FSNY or two Showtime channels. On the $83 Optimum Gold tier, MSG and FSNY are included.

On Cablevision's Brooklyn system, the $43.95 Family Cable package includes the sports networks.

Cablevision subscribers can also buy the stripped-down basic for $11.92 a month, then add MSG or FSNY for $10.95 a month.

Cablevision wants to sell YES in a package or as a separate channel.

On Time Warner's New York City systems, which serve 1.2 million subscribers, MSG and FSNY are priced differently. In Queens and Brooklyn, customers receive MSG and FSNY for $35.59 a month, on the standard tier; in Manhattan, the cost is $36.19. Those tiers exclude premium channels like HBO.

The stalemate between YES and Cablevision might have been avoided — and YES would not have been created — if Cablevision had been willing sometime in the last 18 months to pay what it believes was an overly extravagant price.

Between late 2000 and early 2001, Cablevision and YankeeNets, the holding company for the Yankees, Nets and Devils, discussed possible deals that would have kept Yankees TV rights within its family.

According to four executives who were involved in the unsuccessful talks, YankeeNets asked for up to 50 percent ownership of Fox Sports New York, which in one estimate is worth $600 million. Yankees games would have moved to FSNY and Mets games to MSG.

Second, YankeeNets wanted a low- interest, $300 million loan from Cablevision that was to have eliminated YankeeNets' junk bond debt. In one variation, YankeeNets said $300 million in Cablevision stock could be substituted for the loan.

Third, Cablevision would have paid the Yankees $55 million for the first year of the agreement, then would have added 6 percent annual increases for the next nine years. After the 10th year, the payments would be renegotiated.

Cablevision estimated the value of the proposals at $1.1 billion over 10 years and spurned them all.

This was a game of chicken. Cablevision executives did not seem to think YankeeNets would start YES. And while the YankeeNets' priority was to launch a network, a deal on its terms with Cablevision might have been as good as starting YES.

Negotiations were conducted even as MSG was suing the Yankees in State Supreme Court. The network was irate that the Yankees' effort to create a network with the International Management Group had violated its right to renew its deal. The case moved in the spring of 2001 to mediation by a former federal judge, and in that period, Cablevision's chairman, Charles F. Dolan, suggested that the company wanted a stake in the Yankees as part of a deal. George Steinbrenner, the Yankees' principal owner, refused.

Last June all talks ended and YankeeNets paid MSG $30 million to take back its TV rights. It then formed YES and sold a 40 percent stake to investors for $340 million, which went to retiring debt.

And last week MSG announced an overhaul that included splitting 100 Mets games with FSNY, a partial salve for losing the Yankees.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Sorry about the link not working. This is another good article in the Daily News.
Crawdaddy

 

[Jason Seaver]

So, apparently, there are no good guys (which is always a possibility when the MFY's are involved ).
For some perspective, there was a lot of protest when NESN was made a basic cable channel as opposed to a premium one here in the Boston area last year; a lot of folks who didn't have it were upset about their cable bill going up.
The analogy's not perfect - MediaOne/AT&T Broadband didn't have ownership in a NESN rival (although one could cynically claim that the move to basic was an attempt to drive up the Sox sale price), NESN was an established property, and WFXT carries many more regular-season Sox games than WCBS will carry Yankees games.
In the end, the only folks I truly feel sorry for are the fans who won't have any way to see their team play, whether it be on premium or basic, if a deal isn't worked out. That would have to suck.