I hope comcast had a change of control provision in their carriage contract. Or better yet a most favored nations clause so that their carriage fee is no more than the one paid by uverse. If not they should hire me to review future contracts as a business consultant.
Comcast definitely has a most favored nation clause in their agreement with the Rockets and Astros. I have seen it mentioned in articles several times.
The MFN is a big part of why CSN Houston failed. If they dropped the price for other carriers, it decreased the revenue being received from Comcast, which happened to be the largest carrier in the region. Uverse & DirecTv can now just pay whatever Comcast is paying to keep from losing revenue from Comcast, since they will essentially be paying themselves.
I'll be surprised if the new station goes live before the regular season starts. Is CSN even on the air any more for comcast subscribers? Will no one be able to watch preseason games?
CSN is very much on the air... and this version (or the future version) will stay on comcast indefinitely. Even if they have to fill the non-game time with paid programming now that they're letting all the non-game talent go, the games themselves will still be broadcast as they have their own production crew.
That's why they need the change of control provisions. After all, comcast was willing to pay a reasonable carriage fee. AT&T and Direct TV (which is being acquired by AT&T) refused to support the Astros and Rockets station. Comcast was a minority owner so they were paying mostly to the teams. Like you say, if AT&T owns the network, they aren't really even paying a carriage fee because it is out of one pocket and into the other. So it isn't really fair for comcast to pay the current fee needed to support a real network when AT&T was unwilling to pay that same fee to support the real network. And now it is a scaled down network with no real programming.
With all direct TV and AT&T talk going, does anyone know if people with DISH will be able to get the games? Thanks because my building has a contract with dish and I'm forced to have it.
DISH I just had a chat with a DISH agent. he swears that DISH will have most Rockets games on its FOX SW channel. I was very skeptical...but he was very adamant that DISH would have it. We will see....
He was making that up. It's a lie. Dish might get the Rockets games, but it'd be on Root Sports Houston. Not Fox SW.
You guys need to learn that the representatives are clueless the majority of the time. Stop posting their BS claims.
Will order uverse tomorrow... Any suggestions? Like what to ask for? Will home games be blacked out? I really don't want to go with ballstreams again.....
Ballstreams was great during the Comcast conflict...... It provided pretty good quality but it was a stream.... There were moments when the stream just didn't look the same or there would be problems altogether (although rare). I live in a fairly large home and Chromecast's range is not that great, so I had several headaches getting a high quality picture to the large tv downstairs. With that said, I want to be able to watch the games in peace... Without having to run upstairs after a delay or bad stream to change location....... Without having to hope the stream looks as good as others... Without it cutting out mid way through post game interview...... I just want to set the channel, and watch Rockets bball at highest quality possible without worrying about nothing....... Ballstreams was fine, it got the job done.... Now that's its back on uverse (I think) I'm ready to have a better experience....
