The Things They Carried

The news continues to get worse for Versus and Tennis Channel in their respective carriage disputes with DirecTV and Cablevision. The nation’s second-largest video provider pulls Versus off the air just after midnight after weeks of fruitless negotiations, costing the Comcast-owned net around 14 million homes. Both sides seem firmly entrenched in their positions -- Versus argues it is simply seeking the "same market price that other operators are paying," while DirecTV calls the network's demands "ridiculous." The dropped coverage has to concern Versus, as it will air several high-profile college games and the start of the NHL season in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, Tennis Channel gives its clearest indication yet that Cablevision subs will not gain access to the channel during the enitre two weeks of the U.S. Open. The net says Cablevision's move to join the NCTC in an effort to carry Tennis Channel "raises serious problems" for cable programmers and the implications are "too important to the future of cable programming to be governed by the immediacy" of the U.S. Open.