No Rockets on 51??? Local Blackout????

Yep..other people said they watched the whole thing fine...

Luckily..I watched most of it...starting when the score was 17-12! Great game! Hopefully no more blackouts!

 

Yeah! Feel my pain for not being able to watch the Rockets in Hong Kong? (jk)

Seriously, it sucks to not able to watch the city's team play inside the city. WTF is the NBA thinking? Marketing $h!t?

 

The power of Clutch City.

 

That feels good to say, but when the owners of $100,000 luxury suites inside the Toyota Center can't see the game, I'm sure calls were being made without CC.Net's help.

 

Oh...I'm from HK too and located at Houston now. Glad to see HK ppl supporting the Rox FROM HK!

Well, if they broadcast every Rox game throughout the season, I'm afraid I'd need an extra year to complete my masters degree. To me, it's good to see em' just once in a while.

 

it's on now.

 

Well, I believe TV inside the Toyota center have their own network, so the rich suite owner's wont be troubled. Haven't been to the new arena, but I know the TVs in UT are like that.

i think there's only black outs in the city if the game is not sold out. I think the thinking behind that is if the city isn't supporting the team, they can't see the matchups for free.

 

if you think about it, the game not bein gtelevised on 51 is actually good. That means that KNWS could not afford to pay for the price to show the game. That means that ROckets games are getting more expensive and that means more money for Aexander that he would hopefully use to pay for the Luxury Tax when(and if) they sign a big name free agent

 

.....or he can raise ticket prices again.....

 

heh, my thoughts exactly

 

The article pretty much sums it up. It was a mistake on Time Warner's end. They're still trying to figure out how it happened.

I found out about it about a minute after the game started -- our phone line lit up and the people answering the phone called our Director of Broadcasting and myself. He got Time Warner on the line, and patched in the NBA's VP of Broadcasting to convince Time Warner this game wasn't supposed to be blacked out. They then took 10-15 minutes to bring the feed back on line.

KNWS not showing this game has nothing to do with any fees the Rockets charge for broadcast, by the way. TNT gets exclusivity for broadcasts on Thursday nights for two of the three games being played. They get to pick which two of the three they want. The league negotiates that deal up front. KNWS didn't have the game because it wasn't even an option.

And, by the way, the TNT broadcasts are NEVER supposed to be blacked out in Houston. Under their OLD agreement (which expiered in 2001-02), their game could get blacked out if there was also a locally produced broadcast (for example, KNWS). But last year, their new deal started, which gives them exclusives on Thursdays (no locally produced shows allowed), with no blackouts.

We were as upset as anyone. Time Warner has been a good partner for us in the past. I'm sure they will be in the future. And we all want to make sure this never happens again. I've said this before -- our intent is for every game to be available on TV to fans in Houston, and we've made good on that intent for years. Nothing has changed there.

Tim

 

Thanks Tim for getting on it so fast. I knew this wasn't the Rockets fault... Who would black out the first game of a season in a new stadium lol...... You got us most of the game so great job Tim!!

 

From the Chronicle:

That's why I posted what I did.

 

Thanks, but it's actually my Director of Broadcast, Joel Blank, that should get the credit. He was the first one on the problem, and the one who made the phone calls that got it fixed. He did a terrific job.

Tim