http://blog.chron.com/sportsmedia/2012/11/csn-houston-ad-in-chronicle-asks-for-fans-support-in-carriage-standoff/ They bought a huge ad. Is this why there hasn't been any enterprise/investigative pieces written about this. Also why hasn't a media outlet interviewed the fans? The business owners missing out? The parties involved in the negotiations? This story is just itching to be written and the chron is continuing to play lapdog to the parties with money! Do your job journalists of Houston. Get off your butt and start asking questions. Start with asking why Comcast is so important to the Rockets? Start some real investigative work! There is more going on here than meets the eye and it's not being written about. Seriously Chron, the whole point of a paper isn't to just quote the official sources... one you read out of an ad nonetheless. You have to write real pieces which interview affected residents and you have to actually grill the official sources... not just take their ad money and quote their PR department's approved message.
After bowling last week, I stood outside of CSN in downtown as the execs were leaving for the night - I started asking questions and gave them a hard time. They said they are on the brink of a deal with Direct TV, but also said that DISH network wants to move away from sports... so they were saying they are nowhere close with DISH.
you realize this type of situation is pretty common, right? just look at the longhorn network, it took more than a year for it to make its way onto uverse and there are still several large providers who don't offer it. there's no conspiracy here, this is only a big deal to you bc you're a rockets fan in houston... i can assure you there are a lot of people who genuinely don't care, at least not at the moment, and if there were the providers hands would have been forced by now.
I'm sure some people outside of Houston Rockets terrioty don't care. Because you can only see them with League Pass, but when people inside the area can't see them because of whatever reason, they have Dish, DirecTV, can't get Comcast, that is a big problem. This is similar to the YES Network dispute with DirecTV before the 2011 season. YES wanted an outrageous price per household for the channel. They finally came to an agreement, nothing changed on my monthly bill. Now Comcast has a hand in this, as they also have no let Directv and Dish has CSN Philly. Also kinda reminds me of the recent Viacom issue with DirecTV, where viacom pulled there channels from Directv subs, and blasted directv on twitter, facebook, etc..., they came to an agreement, I'm sure there will be an agreement with Directv and hopefully for everyone else the rest of the main providers.
Giving clutchfans a good discount on tickets a few times is the Rockets buying off discontent. Keep voting in the poll to blame the Rockets if you want more cheap ticket deals.
It's really not that complex: 1. Comcast pays the Rockets to broadcast games; 2. Comcast wants other providers to pay them for rights; 3. Other providers don't want to pay the asking price; 4. Other providers don't want to broadcast named after a direct competitor. Where's the story?
The story is that "0.5" didn't happen: 0.0 Comcast offers to put together CSN-Houston 0.5 Rockets ask Comcast to guarantee widespread distribution
These disputes aren't uncommon. Knicks games last year weren't even broadcast for multiple months due to a carriage fee dispute between Cablevision (the company that ALSO owns the New York Knicks) and Time Warner Cable. It wasn't until Linsanity started going really crazy that the politicians and fans got into the act and started exerting pressure on the cable companies to settle the dispute. Amazingly, it was settled with a handful of days. In this case, Comcast Sportsnet Houston is partially owned by the Rockets, the rest by the Astro's and NBCUniversal. At the center of the dispute is the carriage fee. This could linger for some time unless the Rockets become so popular that carriers will feel the pressure to carry the network. So, as annoying veteran posters may find the influx of new Harden and Lin fans, they really are your best bet at seeing televised games. Otherwise, it's not uncommon for these disputes to linger for months and months... IF Harden and Lin's popularity drive the interest in the Rockets high enough, the Rockets organization (and Alexander) will have made so much money on the new higher carriage fees that it will pay for Harden's AND Lin's salary many times over.... part of the money making equation that fans never see or think about.
The story is HOW it affects the residents. None of the reporting has really taken the time to talk to residents and business owners being affected by the change. It's lazy reporting over all. Furthermore no reporter has bothered interviewing all sides of the issues. It's straight up neglectful journalism.
Probably cause it's not the end of the world that people are missing a few regular season games. Sure, it's not ideal, but I'm of the feeling that a deal gets done sooner rather than later and when you're watching Beardsanity in the playoffs, no one will even remember this. And if you do and it's causing you not to enjoy it, you probably weren't all that great a fan to begin with. I'm still sticking behind my belief that it's boiling down to CSN wanting their station included in the standard package while the providers want to be able to charge customers to upgrade to their sports package. That's the only thing that makes that Chron guy's tweet make sense.
