The two parties have agreed terms for the carriage of Fox’s baseball content on the Time Warner Cable platform in the Los Angeles region, ending a period which has seen over 350,000 cable subscribers in the area go without games involving the Dodgers and the Anaheim Angels for several months.
Back in June, Fox Sports Net had proposed a significant rise in its cost per subscriber for carriage of the Dodgers and Angels’ baseball matches – an increase that Time Warner had baulked at citing that Fox had already raised its fees by two cents per subscriber over the last two seasons.
With neither party backing down on the issue, the dispute had led to a blackout on the cable platform’s coverage involving the two Los Angeles teams. Over the course of the row, Time Warner subscribers missed out on 34 Dodgers games and 15 Angels matches.
In announcing that a resolution had been reached, Steve Simpson, VP of the Fox Sports Net West network, stated: “Baseball is a game that unites all Americans and we are happy that we were able to resolve this issue with Time Warner Cable so that their Dodgers and Angels fans will be able to enjoy the final games of the season.”
Details of the new agreement have not been revealed and as such it remains unclear as to whether one of the broadcasters backed down or a compromise deal was struck.
The two companies are also working towards a conclusion in a similar row involving coverage of the Houston Astros baseball outfit. Sources close to these negotiations stated that ‘real progress’ had been made in the attempts to lift the blackout on the Astros coverage on Time Warner Cable in the Houston area.
