Time Warner Cable on Thursday admitted it has "failed in its efforts to win broad distribution" for SportsNet LA prior to the start of the MLB season, according to Meg James of the L.A. TIMES. TWC made several recent attempts to other pay-TV providers hoping "to entice them to sign up for the Dodgers channel in time for the baseball season." James notes TWC proposed "cutting the carriage fee for the channel, entering into binding arbitration or signing a six-year deal." TWC Senior Dir of Sports & News PR Andrew Fegyveresi: "They've rejected every offer we've made." James notes the most recent offer had TWC offering a six-year deal with rates for SportsNet LA "roughly comparable to what DirecTV charges for a regional sports channel that it owns in Seattle" (L.A. TIMES, 4/1). In California, Janis Carr notes that barring any "11th-hour agreement, Monday will make the start of a third season without an end to the contentious stalemate over distribution" of SportsNet LA (ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER, 4/1). The "urgency to get a deal done" was due to the fact that '16 will be Vin Scully's last season (ESPN.com, 3/31).
AGREE TO DISAGREE: In N.Y., Richard Sandomir notes Opening Day "should be viewed as a deadline to make a deal" for both TWC in L.A. and YES Network in N.Y., but it will "likely be another day of biocoastal gridlock." Comcast and YES Network execs tell "nearly irreconcilable stories about their dispute," as they "can't even agree on when they held their last negotiation." When asked what he and YES could do to jump-start the talks, YES President & CEO Tracy Dolgin said that there "wasn't much to be done." Dolgin: "I can’t turn us back on, And it’s not realistic for me to lower my price below what the bigger guys in the market are paying. It would cause chaos” (N.Y. TIMES, 4/1).
