I agree in part; high-up corporate decisions are pretty much always disaffected by the fate of those working on the ground, and the three parties are entirely responsible for this clusterfoul. But "ruined lives" is a bit of a stretch to me. They didn't Enron these folks out of their retirement funds. A lost job, and I've lost a job before, does not have to ruin someone's life. But yeah, flushing 100+ jobs down the toilet is never cool.
Yes, you get the games which I mentioned most people will consider most important, but there is basically zero local TV coverage of anything. I enjoyed the pre-game and post game shows and the beat reporting. I enjoyed the Dwight Howard show and the Dynamo coverage and the UH coverage and the HS Football coverage etc. I get it, 60% of the area couldn't get the games and that sucks. But this new channel is basically going to be informercials.
The people in charge of CSN could have prevented this from happening if they had simply been willing to be reasonable with their pricing demands when they saw that the carriers were not going to buy it at the inflated prices they were demanding. Maybe they would have had to scale back a bit, but this wholesale carnage could have been prevented.
The owners of CSN responsible for this are losing hundreds of millions of dollars. This is silly. The company was an unsustainable failure. None of these people would have had these jobs in the first place if CSN-H was never attempted and many have already been told they will get opportunities at other NBC Sports Group companies. Would it have been better if they never had these jobs in the first place?
Somehow I don't think the owners of CSNH are going to be hurting, not like people being laid off. And yes, it was an unsustainable failure, BECAUSE of the greed and incompetence of those in charge. But that doesn't mean the CONCEPT had to be an unsustainable failure - a Houston-centric sports channel could have worked fine, and been profitable, if only they had not been so adamant about the ridiculous asking price. And remember, the asking price was not about making CSN 'sustainable', it was about filling Crane's pockets with hundreds of millions of dollars so he could 'compete' with the Ranger and Angels, etc. The absolute refusal to accept reality and be more reasonable with their pricing doomed the channel to death because the carriers simply were never going to buy it at that price. Had they come down enough to get the carriers to bite, then yes, Crane wouldn't have made as much money as he wanted, too bad for him. And yes, CSNH might have had to scale back in some areas. But the channel would not now be dead, and 80 people wouldn't now be losing their jobs and having to uproot their families, etc etc. It's not either-or. There was a middle-ground somewhere, but those in charge of CSNH would hear none of it, and THAT is the real sin here. And innocent people are suffering because of it.
I get this and completely agree with what you are saying. The issue you are going to have with others, is the fact that a good portion of that 60% have no idea what they are missing. They will see "we get the games now" and be happy. But the reality is they are going to get a subpar station and not know what they are missing.
They might not know what they are missing - but they might not care either. These other shows have much lower ratings than the games (if they didn't, the station would retain them). Most people are just interested in the games themselves, so they aren't likely to be concerned with the quality of the rest of the content.
If a Houston-centric sports channel really worked, CSN-H probably would have worked. Even now, Root would continue to air similar broadcasting if they believed it worked.
That would be me. Can't see the programming and to me the upcoming fix will basically put things back the way they were before this debacle. I'll watch the channel for the Astros and Rockets and tune out when the games aren't on. I'll have no idea if I was missing something, other than the games, on CSN and frankly I don't care. Just give me my games that I haven't seen in 2 years.
I'd also like to add that while having the best or second best sports station the country is nice and all, nothing in this market has proven that we are a sports market that can support that. If the cost to sustain a network of that level was a fee that would be the second highest in the country, then it was a bad idea from the start and they shouldn't have tried. The carriers have proven that the marketplace doesn't value sports at a level that we will support those type of costs.
This is just not correct. The judge said in open court that only one offer from a carrier was ever actually presented...and, if accepted, would have caused the network to bleed cash for years. For at least a decade, I believe. The judge said they were wise to reject it. They did accept reality. They accepted the reality there were NO plans out there that could allow this group to be profitable, as it was formed. The Rockets and Astros both said as much after being given charge of negotiations separately during this process.
This fact is often lost with most folks in this situation. People forget (or just don't know) that Comcast told the Rockets/Astros what they could reasonably expect in terms of carriage fees if they all launched the network. Comcast was wrong and discovered that the market couldn't bear those fees.
Yes I know this same response from two years worth of it being thrown around, constantly. There is a failure of simple logic in that argument however. Supposition: CSNH's asking price was too high for the Carriers to accept - therefore, a lower asking price price would have likely caused the Carriers to buy, or, at the very least, actual negotiations in which both parties were willing to move would have eventually enabled an agreement to be reached Canned auto response: Even the Judge says that only one offer ever came from the Carriers, and it was so low as to be unacceptable That's not acceptable to me as a response. It places the responsibility for making a reasonable offer onto the Carriers. If the Carriers were convinced that CSNH's ownership were never going to come down from their original asking price, then why would anyone expect anything but an equally unreasonable lowball offer in response? Once the Carriers knew that CSNH's position was 'Pay our full price or not at all', then why waste their time going through the time and expense of making a legitimate counter-offer? This is the thing which is not taken into account by the canned auto-response of 'Only one offer ever came from the carriers.' To me, CSNH bears the responsibility for the failure because it stubbornly failed to engage in serious reasonable negotiations, and, had it done so, the station could very well be alive and kicking and in front of a majority of homes already. However, it's all moot now, hardly worth even debating. What I am wondering though is this: for the first year or so, the main point of contention was the 'alleged' fee demanded by CSNH, and the assumption was it was in the range of $3.40 per subscriber. As far as I know that was never officially confirmed. Also, as far as I know, by all indications, CSNH never came down from their original asking price, at all (at least according to the vague rumor-like reports we occasionally heard). Once CSNH no longer exists, and Comcast is nothing more than 'just another carrier of the station', and the Rockets & Astros are no longer in ownership roles of the station.. what prevents us from then learning what those facts really were? What the asking price officially was, and what movement was there, exactly, in negotiations, and by whom and by how much, if any? People are going to want to know who to blame, who is responsible for the mess. Where the buck ultimately stopped. Is there going to be any way to unseal that information once AT&T takes over?
