There is "nothing new on the Root Sports Southwest carriage front as basketball season slides into baseball season and the Astros take center stage from the Rockets," according to David Barron of the HOUSTON CHRONICLE. The AT&T/DirecTV Sports Networks-owned channel "hasn't signed on any new providers since emerging from the bankrupt ruins" of CSN Houston in '14 and "isn't likely to do so with more celebrated, high-stakes carriage battles being fought" between Comcast and Yes Network, and the Dodgers' SportsNet LA impasse. In Houston, the main holdouts against Root Sports SW "are Dish Network and Suddenlink, and that isn't likely to change." AT&T in a statement said, "Though Root Sports SW is distributed to 80 percent of the Houston market through Comcast, and AT&T's DirecTV and U-verse services, we want every fan to be able to watch." Suddenlink said that it would "like to add the channel but wants to do so 'in such a way that the customers who want it can get it without forcing others (who don't want it) to pay for it'" (HOUSTON CHRONICLE, 4/8).
