Via Directsattv.com - Time Warner Cable Deal with Lakers Disenfrachises 1.6M
On Monday February 14 2011, the Los Angeles Lakers announced that they had struck a massive 20-year deal with
Time Warner Cable, specifically
Time Warner Los Angeles .
What this game-changing deal allows Time Warner Los Angeles to do is to create a regional sports network that is, at least on the surface, reminiscent of SNY (Mets) and YES (Yankees) in New York. One big difference is that the Lakers will have two stations, one for English, the other Spanish.
But there are other differences as well. In fact, the Time Warner Los Angeles deal is not nearly as fan friendly as it might seem upon cursory examination. According to the LA Times, industry insiders expect the new stations, which will tip off for the 2012-13 season, to disenfranchise at least 1.6M viewers.
Think about that for a second. Let it sink in. Los Angeles is one of the biggest television markets in the world. And what you have here is a deal that is going to cut off a sizable chunk of its base from one of its hottest commodities. Doesn’t make much sense, does it?
Well, the numbers do, unfortunately. Six-hundred thousand plus of the disenfranchised homes are homes that simply don’t have pay television service. While those home are worth ad revenue to the Lakers, they’re worth nothing to Time Warner Los Angeles , and they’re worth less than what TWC is offering the Lakers in exchange.
It doesn’t end there. Those with TWC currently and those with an alternative provider, such as DirecTV, won’t get out of this unscathed. Currently, Lakers broadcasts are part of their basic package. But the Lakers channel will be on a premium tier that will cause basic subscribers to have to upgrade.
And what if they don’t? Well, just like all those homes without pay-for TV service, they’ll be without any Lakers broadcasts except for those that show up throughout the year on the networks like NBC.
Perhaps most interesting will be the contract negotiations in the summer of 2012 between Time Warner Los Angeles and DirecTV, Dish, Cox and so forth. How much will the government intervene, if at all? Surely, TWC will attempt to extort these other companies to some degree.
A new Lakers channel may seem great at first glance. But don’t kid yourself. This is a mess in the making, and as we creep closer to the end of the Fox Sports West deal, you can expect it to get crazy.
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