About half of the TV audience gains Yankees games on YES Network have seen this year can be "tied to the new deal with Comcast," according to Bob Fernandez of the PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER. Ratings for Yankees games are up about 60% this year from '16, when the team "didn’t make the playoffs" and Comcast had "booted the Fox-owned network out of about 900,000 of its subscribers’ homes in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and northeastern Pennsylvania in what the industry calls a carriage dispute." YES said that an average of 343,000 viewers "watched games in the first half of this season," and game ratings have climbed about 9% since the All-Star break. YES President Jon Litner said, "We needed the baseball gods and a little bit of luck and we were positioned to capitalize if the team performed, and that’s what we did." Comcast restored YES to its subscribers in the N.Y. TV market at the "beginning of this baseball season in a new contract with Fox cable channels." Comcast may have "relented because it feared losing" Fox News, which could have "led to deep Comcast subscriber losses" (PHILLY.com, 8/30).
