Comcast Drops MSG Networks | TV Tech

NEW YORK—After being unable to return to a brand new carriage settlement, the MSG Networks have gone darkish on Comcast’s Xfinity channel lineup, primarily in New Jersey and Connecticut. The MSG Networks carry video games from New York Knicks, New Jersey Devils, New York Rangers and New York Islanders. A chronic dispute may hold the video games off the cable methods because the NBA and NHL seasons start.Regional sports activities networks are a number of the costlier channels carried on pay TV packages and have been the topic of more and more contentious negotiations between operators and programmers. In a press release, MSG Networks complained that: “Right when followers are trying ahead to the beginning of the NBA and NHL seasons, Comcast dropped MSG Networks to attempt to drive us to simply accept phrases they’d by no means comply with for their very own regional sports activities networks, together with SNY in New York. They rejected proposals which can be according to their present deal and offers we now have with different main suppliers, in addition to our provide to maintain our programming on air underneath present phrases so we may proceed to work on a longer-term settlement. And although they’ve taken away a whole lot of stay Knicks, Devils, Rangers and Islanders video games, they proceed to cost Xfinity prospects the identical month-to-month fee — along with a regional sports activities charge that they elevated 22% in January to greater than $10 per thirty days. Comcast’s refusal to barter is deeply disappointing.”In response Comcast issued this assertion: “We don’t imagine that our prospects ought to should pay the hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in charges that MSG is demanding for a number of the most costly sports activities content material within the nation with extraordinarily low viewership in our markets. We have efficiently negotiated hundreds of agreements with programmers and reached agreements in virtually each occasion and are disenchanted that MSG determined to drag their content material relatively than attain a good settlement.”