San Diego City Council members “held an unusually combative meeting at City Hall Thursday to grill executives at Time Warner Cable and Fox Sports San Diego over a yearlong impasse that has left 129,000 customers north of the San Diego River unable to watch Padres baseball games on television,” according to Matthew Hall of the SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE. After months of stalled negotiations, reps from the two companies will “meet in New York City next week to try to find the common ground that was clearly eluding them during Thursday's hearing.” It took “repeated prompting from city officials to even get the TV executives to sit at the same table at the two-hour hearing, which was recessed twice so the companies could contact other executives elsewhere to schedule next week's meeting.” San Diego Mayor Bob Filner “announced that he has set up an official city email account -- gopadres@sandiego.gov -- for angry Padres fans to share their displeasure and their thoughts about switching TV providers from Time Warner Cable to one of the area's other providers.” Rules & Economic Development Committee members Sherri Lightner, David Alvarez and Marti Emerald “voted 3-0 to ask the mayor and city attorney to attempt to get financial documents from Time Warner Cable, using authority it may have in the city's franchise agreement with the company.” There “weren't many fans” at the meeting, with only “40 or so people” in attendance (SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE, 3/15).
FIRING MORE SALVOS: In Houston, David Barron noted DirecTV has an "updated message to subscribers" on its "No Fan Should Be Sidelined" website regarding the ongoing carriage dispute with CSN Houston. The net yesterday responded with a comment on IWantCSNHouston.com (CHRON.com, 3/14).
