Jalen Brunson, n ° 11 of the New York Knicks, went to the basket during the match against the Indiana Pacers in the Tour 2, the first game of the NBA 2024 qualifiers at Madison Square Garden in New York on May 6, 2024.
Nathaniel S. Butler | National Basketball Association | Getty images
Altice USA Customers lost access to MSG networks early Wednesday due to a transport dispute between cable television operator and James Dolan's regional sports channels.
Altice USA Cable TV customers have lost access to the NBA New York Knicks and New York Rangers from NHL, New York Islanders and New Jersey Devils early on Wednesday. The power failure comes while the Knicks are on a Eight games win the sequence and is planned to play Wednesday evening.
Negotiations between Altice USA and MSG networks have broken down due to a dispute on costs – often the case in these discussions. The power failure shows the continuous difficulties for regional sports networks while customers leave the cable television pack to a quick clip, and operators postponed high costs.
The Altice USA and MSG networks each published statements on Wednesday about the dispute.
“We have offered Altice a number of fair and reasonable proposals that called for Altice to pay us less than last year,” according to an MSG Networks statement. “Altice has rejected them all, including our offer to keep MSG networks on the waves while we continue to try to conclude an agreement. We remain ready to negotiate in good faith.”
However, Altice USA said in a statement That “MSG Networks requests exorbitant programming costs – which could increase the cable bills of our customers – and, to add the insult to injuries, MSG networks forced us to make their channels available to the vast majority of optimal video subscribers, which would force customers to pay for the content they do not watch.”
Altice USA noted MSG Networks streaming options for customers who still want to access their teams.
Altice USA, based in New York, had more than 1.9 million residential cable television customers September 30After losing around 77,000 compared to the same quarter of the previous year.
The regional sports networks sector was seriously affected by the consumer passage of traditional cable television beams to streaming options. In 2024 Diamond Sports, the owner of the largest portfolio of these networks, won the court approval To leave protection against bankruptcy after being in the grip of the same opposite winds.
Like other regional sports networks, MSG networks spear A streaming option in 2023 at a price of $ 29.99 per month. In 2024, MSG Networks joined the Yes network, which presents local games for New York Yankees, for a combined offer called Gotham Sports App, which costs $ 359.99 per year or $ 41.99 per month.
The high prices of these streaming options show that regional sports networks must be careful not to disturb the cable television model more and to recruit contracts with distributors. These contracts with cable television operators help support billions of dollars in costs to which networks pay professional sports teams to broadcast their games.
