Comcast, New York sports network hit impasse in retrans row


Details

Michelle Clancy

| 19 November 2015




Comcast and YES, the New York Yankees/Brooklyn Nets regional sports net, have failed to resolve their differences in a retransmission showdown.



About 900,000 Comcast customers are without regional sports channel Yankees Entertainment & Sports Network after their carriage deal expired at midnight on Wednesday. As usual, the dispute settles on price.

YES, owned by Twenty-First Century Fox, is reportedly the most expensive regional sports net, at $4.89 per subscriber month. But, Comcast said that in the areas it carries the network (in New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania), its 900,000 customers don't really watch the channel, especially outside baseball season.

"The price FOX and the Yankees are requiring from our customers is not acceptable given the network’s minimal viewership, which is why we have decided we can no longer justify continuing to carry the network,” the cableco said.

The standoff comes after months of negotiations – Comcast’s YES deal officially expired in February and the network gave repeated extensions, through the baseball season and into the first weeks of professional basketball. The Scranton-Times Tribune reported that YES says it and Comcast reached an agreement on principle months ago and that it operated in good faith toward a new contract.