KDOC to carry six Dodgers games

Time Warner Cable and the Los Angeles Dodgers made a deal with KDOC Channel 56 today, in that KDOC will simulcast from SportsNet L.A. the Dodgers' final six regular season games, starting September 22nd (all home games; three vs. San Francisco, three vs. Colorado).

http://www.latimes.com/entertainmen...dodgers-games-on-local-tv-20140915-story.html

Looks like Time Warner blinked first. The Dodgers going nearly the entire season with their games on a single cable provider, and thus seen in only select SoCal cities, has resulted in lower ratings, and I'm certain unhappy advertisers. Is it possible Time Warner and the Dodgers may go back to a hybrid broadcast/cable schedule for 2015?

You would hope so, but with that mutli-billion dollar contract the Dodgers signed with TWC, I think the only time you'll see them on OTA is whenever Fox bothers to show a game on Saturdays. This wouldn't be much of an issue if TWC had insisted that the Dodgers share a channel with the Lakers instead of wasting bandwith on a channel that would have no live off-season programming. At least TWC SportsNet has other live programming surrounding the Lakers.

Yes, Time Warner will allow---for a huge fee, I'm sure---six Dodgers games to be carried on KDOC-Channel 56. Daily News columnist Tom Hoffarth says we should reject what he calls a "self-serving offer" and a "condescending un-noble gesture." He insists that "if the Dodgers were just coming to the conclusion of a season where the playoffs weren't in sight, this same offer would not have materialized."

KDOC is available on these Los Angeles providers:

AT&T U-Verse, 1006
Charter, 710
Cox, 1012
DirecTV, 56
Dish, 56
Verizon FiOS, 506

Shawn, who are these "Lakers" that you speak of?

In a full-page ad in today's Los Angeles Times with the headline "Dodgers fans 1st," Time Warner says, "We're part of this community and we love the Dodgers too. That's why we are putting fans first and broadcasting the remaining games of the season on KDOC-TV."

KDOC is not showing "the remaining games"---only six of them. And Time Warner is "putting fans first"? Really? Their CEO made this deal out of the goodness of his heart? KDOC didn't have to pay any money to Time Warner? Wow.

A September 17 story in the Desert Sun quotes Time Warner spokesman Andrew Fegyverski: “Unfortunately, KDOC is not available to Dodger fans in a few areas such as desert cities. If any other operator wants access to the games, they can reach out to us and we would be willing to offer them a free preview of SportsNet LA from September 22nd to the 28th so that their customers can see the Dodgers during this thrilling pennant chase.”

Representatives from DirecTV, Dish and Verizon FiOS all said that they will decline Time Warner’s offer. What is wrong with them? Are they suspicious? Do they think Time Warner has some ulterior motive? Do they think Time Warner is not really altruistic and truly interested in enabling Dodgers fans to see the games on tv? Golly gee, how could they think such horrible things? (Or maybe they could come up with eight and a half billion reasons.)

http://www.desertsun.com/story/spor...e-warner-cable-directv-verizon-dish/15810043/

To answer an above question, no KDOC didn't have to pay Time-Warner Cable. Said company is that station's best client. Over half the ads run on the main channel and their two English-language digital channels are for TWC. This, I imagine was a huge thank you to KDOC. Think about it. You really think THIS station would have the budget to pay a any sort of licensing fee for just a week of Major League Baseball. I do suspect this was less about the fans, and more about pacifying the advertisers who can be none too happy about 70% of Southern California not being able to see Dodger Baseball for much of the season. And now that the ratings are coming in (a record 6 share for KDOC on Monday) TWC is going to have to make choices.

They can either dig their heels in on the asking price to carry next season, and most likely lose a lot of the sponsors, or they will have to bring the price down. A third option might be to have on OTA station bid on a re-drawn TV package of perhas 50 to 100 games (the rest still being exclusive on SportsNet)

More than three times as many viewers have been watching the Dodgers on KDOC than on Time Warner Cable. And I can understand why KDOC did not have to pay a fee to carry those six games. A Time Warner ad runs approximately every two minutes during the games!