Attention: VivaElBirdos members in Mediacom service areas.

on adding this channel to the sports package that we offer. So far they’ve had very little luck with it. MLB Network wants to be on the Expanded tier of service, which means a boatload of cash for them and higher prices for our customers. It’s a bone of contention with every major sports league network, which is why we don’t have NBA TV or the NFL Network either.

Do you have Fox Sports Chicago? If so, then I can’t help you. That choice is made by the RVP in your region on which Fox regional network to carry. We dumped FSN-CH when they lost the broadcast rights to the Small Bears, because they literally offered us nothing more than that on their channel and we still get 100 games a year on WGN. Your region contains a lot of Illinois communities who might be interested in White Sox baseball and C-USA football and basketball.

The contract that we have with them allows us to carry 140 games (I think — not sure on the exact number). To get the remainder (around 22-30 games last year), we have to pay for a separate package — that package costs the same per sub as the first 140 game package that we currently receive. So we either double the cost to all subscribers OR we go without 22 games. The reason for this, I assume, is that most of these games are broadcast by other networks, so FSN MW has to pay a premium to get that content and they pass that on to us, which then gets passed on to you.

You have to remember that since it’s on the basic tier of service that every customer who has cable has to pay these rates, not just those who watch that particular channel. For instance, we pay $5.50 per sub for the ESPN package of channels. They basically throw classic in for free. So essentially $5.50 of your monthly bill goes directly to ESPN. Since we have 78 channels on our expanded/basic service package, you can see how high a percentage we pay for sports content. When Turner renewed their NBA rights and got baseball and college football on TBS, their demand for $$$ per sub more than doubled. Who do you think people are going to be pissed at if their local cable operator doesn’t have TNT, TBS, and ESPN? It certainly isn’t the content providers, but that’s where a large chunk of our money from the TV business goes.

We’ve demanded that FSN-MW HD actually put content up on their channel when games aren’t on and then we’d look at adding the rest of the Cardinal games and some other content like Big 12 Women’s basketball, college baseball, etc.

I’m not sure what to tell you. I’ve sent an email asking about our stance on this topic, but I haven’t received any word yet as to what exactly our plan is for the coming season. Keep in mind, we can pick up this package at any time, we picked up the Big Ten network the Thursday before the football season opened last year, so these things can move pretty quickly. If it’s really important to her to have every game, she should contact the a dish provider and ask for just the Fox Sports package and nothing else. She has the legal right to do this via “buy-through”, but I’d be interested to see what they’d charge her per month and what the install fee might be. She may just be better off switching providers at this time, although you’re going to be dealing with a lot more blackout bullshit with the dish companies than you will with us, because of the way they set up their “markets”, so she may have an even bigger headache with them, and that’s not including all the times she’ll lose games due to shitty weather.

fourstick@gmail.com