As part of the legal feud over the future of its TV
rights deal, MLB has told ESPN "to limit nightly game clips
to five minutes total per studio news show, and no more than
two minutes on any game, as per its contract," according to
Steve Zipay of NEWSDAY, who writes that the "allowance" does
not affect ESPN's "Baseball Tonight." Zipay: "As a result,
viewers may be noticing more profiles and full-screen
graphics with scores and stats instead of highlights."
ESPN Dir of Communications Mike Soltys: "They asked us to
stick to the limit. We hope they're enforcing it with our
competitors." Fox Sports News' Exec Producer John Terenzio
said, "We assume we are being monitored, as should any news
organization." However, MLB Dir of PR Rich Levin said the
league isn't "monitoring" the nets, but "reminding them to
abide by the contract." Zipay: "A contract's a contract,
but maybe there should be some wiggle room, especially in
the summer, when the sports calendar is the least crowded.
To me, game footage is a stream of continuous promotion and
perhaps the best publicity for baseball" (NEWSDAY, 7/30).
VIEWERS GETTING DODGED: Charter Cable subscribers have
missed 14 Dodgers games on Fox Sports Net West2 (FSNW2)
since July 6, when Charter "balked" at a $.25 surcharge for
additional Dodgers games. Charter VP Pete Eliason said the
cable company "has gotten a lot of calls, although I
wouldn't say we were swamped. ... If we raised our rate (25
cents), we'd get 10 times the number of calls we're getting
now." A Charter spokesperson said the $.25 surcharge "works
out to a $250,000 hit over the course of a year." FSNW2 Dir
of PR Steve Webster: "Customers need to know that even with
the surcharge, Charter's cost to carry FSW and FSW2 is less
than its cost for ESPN and ESPN2" (Bob Keisser, Long Beach
PRESS-TELEGRAM, 7/30). In L.A., Larry Stewart: "Charter this
week announced the public sale of stock worth $3.45 billion.
In comparison, its seems clearing up this Fox Sports West 2
mess would be a small detail" (L.A. TIMES, 7/30).
