Meet the Mets: Cable Companies Settle Their Dispute By RICHARD SANDOMIR Published: May 10, 2005 On the 63rd day of a dispute that had kept almost a third of the local television market from watching most Mets games this season, the MSG Network and Fox Sports New York were restored to Time Warner Cable's systems in time for last night's game against the Cubs. (The game was delayed by rain and ended at 12:52 a.m.) The agreement between Time Warner and Cablevision will last until 2008. No other details were announced, and officials from each side declined to discuss the settlement. Executives for Time Warner and Cablevision, which owns MSG and FSNY, met through the day in the Manhattan office of Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. "They understood that denying the public access to the ballgames wasn't a good, healthy thing in terms of their civic responsibility," Spitzer said. "It would have been nice if they had compromised sooner, but we got there today. All credit goes to them." Spitzer said he had been monitoring the negotiations, which had stalled often. They resumed last week but had not yielded an agreement. "I made a judgment call that they had exhausted what they could do, and I thought there was some upside to getting them together today," Spitzer said. "I gave them some coffee and cookies, and maybe that helped." He said he and other staff members sat in on the session yesterday. This is familiar territory for Spitzer. In 2003, he brokered the deal that put the YES Network on Cablevision's systems after a lengthy blackout. And last year, he intervened to help end the 10-day blackout of Mets games on MSG and FSNY on Time Warner's systems, the first major flare-up in their dispute. The impasse had affected Mets, Knicks and MetroStars fans among Time Warner's 2.4 million subscribers. It restricted them to viewing Mets games on Channel 11. Ratings surged on Channel 11 for its nine games, by 29 percent over last year; MSG and FSNY's combined rating for 22 games had fallen 39 percent over the comparable number of games in 2004, largely because of the blackout on Time Warner. One game was also carried by ESPN. "It's been frustrating," said Jay Kim, a lawyer in Manhattan who posted an online petition, which grew to 2,341 names and called on Spitzer to get involved. "This is the most promising team they've had in years, but I hardly know them. I watch games on weeknights; my weekends are too busy. So I've read about them, caught some highlights, but these players are still strangers to me." The two sides battled over the price Cablevision wanted Time Warner to pay to renew the channels. They had been without a contract since the end of 2003. Cablevision had said since March that a settlement could be reached only through binding arbitration. Time Warner rejected the offer, seeking a resolution through mediation or one-on-one talks. "The resolution today came through negotiations, not arbitration," said Mark Harrad, a Time Warner spokesman. Time Warner insisted that it should not pay increased monthly subscriber fees for MSG and FSNY, which have lost the rights to the Yankees and the Nets to YES, and will lose the Mets to the team's network after this season. Time Warner and Comcast are partners with the Mets in the network. According to Kagan Research, an industry analysis research firm, the combined subscriber fee for MSG and FSNY is $3.80 a month. The fee that the Mets will charge next season is not known. Spitzer said he was not worried that a similar dispute might arise next year between Cablevision and the Mets' channel, but he said the public's continued access to sports and other programming was "something that policymakers must think about." Tony Avella, chairman of the City Council's zoning and franchise committee, said he believed two recent hearings he held brought the quarrelling sides together. The sessions "politely embarrassed them by holding their franchise renewals over their heads," he said. Time Warner and Cablevision's cable franchises in New York expire in 2008, but negotiations can start this fall. Avella added, "Under existing cable law, we have limited power in terms of content and rates, so we can only apply public pressure." The standoff prompted Assemblyman Michael N. Gianaris, a Queens Democrat, to co-sponsor a bill in the state legislature that would have imposed a penalty of 10 cents per subscriber on Time Warner and Cablevision for each day the Mets were off the air. The levies would have amounted to $14 million a month. "Two days after our announcement, they started talking again, and a week later, they had a deal," he said. -- If you're not have fun in baseball, you miss the point of everything. --

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