TWC said to have high asking price for Dodgers net

0

Time Warner CableTime Warner Cable is one of the fiercest MVPDs when it comes to hardball negotiations to keep the retransmission consent price of local broadcast television in check. But when it’s asking for fees for its own programming, such as its Los Angeles Dodgers regional sports channel, the sky appears to be the limit.


According to the New York Post, TWC is already distributing two pricy regional sports networks in the LA area, making a third a difficult proposition for a number of MPVDs.

It is even more difficult when the asking price, according to NYP, is $5 per sub to start with the cost rising to $8 per sub after five years.

NYP compared that price to a pair of regional sports distributors in its own neighborhood – MSG, which offers two channels for $5/sub and YES, which offers Yankees baseball for $3/sub.

The other MVPDs operating in the area include AT&T (U-verse), Charter, Cox, DirecTV and Verizon (FiOS).

The Post notes that TWC needs to recoup steep investments made in major league teams in the LMA area. The Dodgers deal comes in at $8B over 25 years, on top of a $3B, 20 year deal with basketball’s Lakers and a $550M ten year deal with soccer’s Galaxy.

Time is said to be of the essence, with TWC  hoping to get its carriage deals done by sometime in Q1 2014.