With the Los Angeles Dodgers in their third season playing on Time Warner Cable SportsNet LA, the franchise’s exclusive network, the stalemate between TWC and AT&T/DirecTV and a slew of others lingers on.
In effort to initiate talks, TWC offered SportsNet LA to DirecTV and others, at a price 30 percent lower than their previous rate, with the understanding the 2016 season is monumental given it’s Vin Scully’s final in the broadcast booth.
Time Warner’s overtures were rejected, and so too were their revised proposals that followed in the days after. Last week, local Congresswoman Janice Hahn wrote a letter to TWC and AT&T/DirecTV to request a meeting with both parties in hopes of bringing an end to the impasse.
According to Bill Shaikin of the LA Times, while Time Warner accepted the proposal, AT&T denied the opportunity and has taken issue with TWC’s means of negotiating:
However, in a letter to Hahn, AT&T said any meeting with TWC should be “conducted on a business-to-business basis … without unproductive public posturing.”
The AT&T letter, dated Thursday, also said: “We continue to stand ready to engage with TWC in good-faith negotiations to resolve this dispute when TWC agrees to conduct the negotiations in a professional manner consistent with industry practice of respecting the privacy and confidentiality of those discussions.”
In August 2014, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti asked the Federal Communications Commission to review the stalemate. There was hope the merger between AT&T and DirecTV would be enough to end the impasse, but no progress has been made.
TWC spokesperson Andrew Fegyveresi previously confirmed to DodgerBlue.com that short- and long-term deals were offered to pay-TV providers, along with aribtration. DirecTV declined to enter binding arbitration with TWC last year.
At present time, SportsNet LA is available to Bright House Networks, Charter Communications and TWC subscribers.
