No, LA and NYC are not larger than the five state area for CSN, but that is just talking about the NYC and LA markets alone. Both are larger than Houston, DFW, and Austin, SA combined. .
But the LA MSA doesn't include the Inland Empire. And anyone who has been to LA knows that the Inland Empire is just an extension of LA. Ventura-Oxnard-Thousand Oaks isn't even included in the LA total you posted.
http://www.tvb.org/media/file/TVB_Market_Profiles_Nielsen_Household_DMA_Ranks2.pdf These are estimates of tv market sizes: Houston is 10th at a little over 2 million. Austin adds 700,000, San Antonio adds 881,000. (I don't think adding DFW is fair since the Rockets/Astros are not the draw there when they have the Rangers/Mavericks on tv) Let's be generous and call it 4 million. NY has 7.3 million and LA has 5.6 million. That's before you start grabbing their satellite markets or consider the fact that as the most popular team in the country, the YES network is actually broadcast nationwide on a few providers and actually gets ratings on its original content.
Now, forget tv market size for a minute and let's talk ratings. The Yankees averaged 290,000 viewers for Yankee games on YES in 2012. http://web.yesnetwork.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20130116&content_id=40974250&oid=0&print=true Last year, the Astros had a game that averaged less than 2,000 viewers. (one game fluke, yes) http://blog.chron.com/sportsmedia/2...erage-start-for-texans-record-low-for-astros/ That said, the Friday game that aired right before this one was only marginally better (.05 to .07) http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/28806/astros-finally-hit-rock-bottom It's hard to figure these numbers sometimes, but I recall reading that Rockets games average less than 100,000 viewers (prior to all these shenanigans) as well. Setting aside just the sports and looking at total daily viewers over the course of the year (have to go back to 2011 to see these numbers) and Fox Sports Houston/Southwest isn't even in the top 6. http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Issues/2012/01/24/Research-and-Ratings/RSNs.aspx New York has two stations in the top 6 and the other 4 are Detroit, Philadelphia, Chicago and Boston.
The article referenced that the RSNs are approaching the $5 per subscriber level. Both the YES and RSN-LA networks can charge less because their subscriber bases are much larger and possess the capacity to generate far more revenue than CSN.
It doesn't work that way. You think networks with lower demand charge more for their services? I mean, I know that CSN feels that they have a specific revenue number they need they just have to charge more, but that doesn't make it logical or economically viable.
And it is obvious to most people that they are not going to get it. Those of us on here can get as mad as we want, but the city of Houston is proving right now that missing the Rockets and Astros on tv isn't a huge deal to the city overall. Jimbo himself said very few have switched to comcast . . .
Refman, you're missing the point here. It's not what amount that is being charged but rather to whom it's getting charged. The issue concerns who gets to pay: those subscribers who truly want to receive the CSN sports programming and who would gladly pay for the extra sports tier OR those who couldn't care less about CSN but are forced to pay for their sports programming anyway if it's placed on the basic tier. If it's the former, then CSN wouldn't generate the kind of revenue necessary to make this deal work. If it's the latter, the carriers would gladly pick up CSN and place them on the basic tier IF they believed there was advertising $$$ to be made. The reason for the impass is that they (carriers) don't believe that the CSN deal would generate more by the way of advertising $$$. And, without any additional programming to give themselves a better bargaining position (TV shows or cable channels), CSN lacks any real leverage to hold over the carriers like Fox can with its RSNs.
Right - the economics are simply screwy here. When times are bad for these teams, their asking prices don't go down because they need the extra revenue to "rebuild". When times are good, their asking prices rise because they feel they should be "rewarded" for their success.
Until providers provide an a la carte option, everyone pays for channels they don't want. If a provider wants CSN to be separate, they shouldn't put it on a tier with other channels. That is hypocritical. Providers just want to force Houston sports fans to buy their sports tier with a lot of channels that Houston sports fans don't watch. I am upset with Comcast, Rockets, and Astros over this issue. However, I see the providers as a middle man to distribute content. Rockets and Astros are crucial content to me. I like sports bars, but I also would like to watch games in my home. Hulu, CBS.com, and netflix exist which in my opinion provide much easier access to content not including live sports.
That's not how they set their prices. They don't price themselves based on being competitive with other carriers, they price themselves at the highest they can justify and get. It's just like tickets. People often think that teams set ticket prices based on what they are spending in payroll, but reality is that they will charge whatever the consumer will pay, payroll be damned. The Yankees don't ask for less than they can get just because more people will be paying.
The Yankees might be able to get more, but they are a National channel. It is about total dollars and about what a carrier is willing to pay.
The Yankees also probably do better than 1.5% of the households watching, but that is purely a guess.
