For Dodgers fans, the TV shutout continues

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For Los Angeles Dodgers fans, the long wait to see games televised again may be headed into extra innings.

An estimated 70% of Los Angeles-area households don't get the SportsNet LA channel that carries Dodgers games. That situation was expected to be corrected if Comcast's planned $45-billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable had succeeded. With that merger officially pronounced dead, the prospects of a deal to carry the games on other cable and satellite providers were as murky as ever. "There's no end in sight," said David Carter, executive director of the USC Marshall Sports Business Institute. "There does not appear to be an easy workaround to get this thing done." With few exceptions, televised Dodgers games can be seen only by customers of Time Warner Cable, which agreed to pay $8.35 billion over 25 years for the rights to distribute the Dodgers-owned SportsNet LA. Its rivals, including DirecTV and Charter Communications, have refused to pay what they say are excessive fees to carry the games. The standoff began in 2014 and has carried over into the current season.

Time Warner Cable chief Robert D. Marcus said he would like to resume talks with other providers. But any kind of resolution is still out of reach as long as pay-TV operators that also include Verizon FiOS, AT&T and Cox Communications continue to bristle at the cost of the channel. Time Warner Cable has asked other cable and satellite TV companies to pay as much as $4.90 a month per subscriber for SportsNet LA, according to industry consulting firm SNL Kagan. Time Warner Cable and Guggenheim Baseball Management, which owns the Dodgers, overestimated consumer interest and underestimated resistance from other pay-TV operators.


For Dodgers fans, the TV shutout continues Dodgers fans find ways around local blackout (workarounds)