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Cable TV squabble puts M's fans in pickle
Jan 14, 2012 (Anchorage Daily News - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
We're about a month away from the time when pitchers and catchers report for spring training, but in Alaska, the baseball season is in full swing.
And fans, we have a brouhaha on our hands.
A game of hardball between cable provider GCI and cable network ROOT Sports has left Seattle Mariners fans in Alaska in a pickle -- forced to choose between possibly paying more for cable if they want their almost-daily dose of Mariners, or dropping cable in favor of a satellite service, or getting their Mariners fix on the radio, or finding another team to follow, or simply doing without.
GCI says it dropped ROOT -- formerly known as Fox Sports Northwest -- when the contract between the two expired at the beginning of the year because ROOT wanted GCI to pay more for the service.
ROOT says it was prepared to accept a proposal made by GCI on a Friday afternoon in mid-December, but that when it contacted GCI the following Monday, it was told the offer was no longer on the table.
GCI says the situation is not irreversible -- it is willing to carry ROOT, but only on its terms.
ROOT says GCI's terms are unacceptable.
GCI says that in lieu of ROOT, it has added the MLB Network, available on higher-priced cable or bundle packages than the packages that used to carry ROOT.
ROOT says the MLB Network is no substitute for ROOT, because the MLB Network will not be allowed to show Mariners games in Alaska unless the Mariners make the playoffs.
GCI says that if Mariner fans are angry about this they should call ROOT and tell it to agree to GCI's terms.
ROOT says that if Mariner fans are angry about this they should call GCI and tell them to bring back ROOT.
And so it goes.
'A LINE IN THE SAND'
As far as GCI is concerned, the issue boils down to the fact that when the two companies began negotiating a new contract, ROOT Sports (formerly cable channel 36) wanted GCI to pay more for the network.
"But what they were asking for in terms of a rate increase was way out of proportion," GCI spokesman David Morris said.
For one thing, Morris said, ROOT "was the second most costly (channel) in our video channel lineup."
For another, he said, GCI research has shown that of its 140,000 statewide subscribers, 5,000 of them watched ROOT at any given time.
And finally, he said, ROOT is about to lose one of its marquee pieces of programming -- Pac-12 football. The conference is starting its own television network.
"The programmers cannot keep raising their rates without (providers like GCI) drawing a line in the sand saying enough is enough," Morris said. "... What we felt with ROOT is, you can't justify the rate increase they were asking in light of the reduced programming."
HIGH-LEVEL NEGOTIATIONS
Neither company would detail how much GCI paid ROOT for the now-expired contract or what either side proposed this time around, but both agree ROOT's initial proposal asked for a rate increase.
ROOT vice president of affiliate relations Steve Schwartz said the cable network made its initial offer in April but didn't hear back from GCI until early November, when GCI balked.
"Fast-forward to the end of December," Schwartz said, "and they put forth a proposal that essentially allowed us to maintain distribution on their systems at the status quo of the 2011 deal. What they had offered was an increase in what they were currently paying us, but not much more. They had negotiated us down.
"... We offered to accept their final offer, and they informed us that offer was no longer (available)."
Specifically, Schwartz said, GCI re-affirmed the details of a proposal in a phone call on the afternoon of Friday, Dec. 16. When ROOT contacted GCI on Monday morning to accept the offer, "they said our offer from Friday night is no longer available."
Not true, Morris said.
"To say we withdrew an offer is inaccurate," he said.
Schwartz and Morris both said the negotiations eventually went to the highest levels -- in a conversation on the Friday before New Year's, the president of ROOT and the president of GCI tried and failed to work out an agreement.
NO MARINERS GAMES
ROOT's northwest region network, which reaches 3.3 million households, offers live and taped coverage of Pac-12 games, Gonzaga basketball and the Major League Soccer teams in Seattle and Portland.
But Mariners baseball is the network's marquee programming -- it will air 156 of Seattle's 162 regular-season games this season -- and Mariners baseball is probably what Alaska viewers will miss most with the loss of ROOT.
And the addition of MLB Network won't fill in the gaps left behind by ROOT, Schwartz said.
"They've positioned it as a trade. Well, it's not a fair trade," he said. "The reality is we're not a substitution for one another."
The GCI package that includes the MLB Network costs about 20 percent more than the package that included ROOT. GCI's $69.49 cable-only monthly subscription rate gives you 123 channels and until Jan. 1 included ROOT but to get the MLB Network (cable channel 149), you must subscribe to the $82.49 monthly package that has 170 channels.
Morris said 80 percent of GCI subscribers already pay for a package that includes the MLB Network, which will air more than 180 preseason and regular-season games this season.
But if it's Mariners games Alaska viewers want, they're out of luck.
The MLB Network cannot air Mariners games in Alaska because Major League Baseball designates territories for every team and Seattle's includes Alaska. ROOT owns the television rights to Mariners games, so only ROOT can air Mariners games in Alaska.
The MLB Network "will be able to show Mariners games (in Alaska) if the Mariners get into the playoffs," Morris said, but not until then.
That includes road games and home games, whether they are sellouts or not, he added.
'FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT'
Morris said GCI is willing to resume talks with ROOT, but GCI's line in the sand appears to be drawn in permanent ink. GCI won't put ROOT back in the basic cable package, he said.
"Where we want to go with this is, if you want ROOT Sports, we would put them in a stand-alone tier -- which means if you want it, you pay for it like you do HBO," Morris said. "They didn't want that, so we offered to put them in our digital sports tier, but they didn't want that either.
"What they wanted was to have ROOT where all the (GCI) customers would pay for it even if they didn't watch it. They couldn't quite get off that."
Schwartz said GCI is asking for something none of the network's other distributors were getting.
"(It's) fundamentally different than any other distributor (deal), not only in Alaska, not only in the Northwest, but in all our regions," he said. "Primarily what they were offering was some type of tier or ala carte offer. That really limits the access that their subscribers would have to the product. They would have to pay more to get those games."
In a true ala carte system, cable subscribers would choose which channels they want and pay only for those channels rather than doing what they do now -- pay for a set lineup of channels, called a bundle, whether they watch them all or not.
Ala carte plans aren't allowed by the Federal Communications Commission, "but we would love to get to that point," Morris said.
___ (c)2012 the Anchorage Daily News (Anchorage, Alaska) Visit the Anchorage
Daily News (Anchorage, Alaska) at www.adn.com Distributed by MCT Information
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