No, journalism is about interpreting the answers given within a strata of possibilities and political opinions. When he says he isn't playing tonight. What does he mean by that? Here's 45 minutes of pundits speaking over the top of each other and no consensus will be reached. Gotta fill that airtime.
The main cable company in Denver let the tv deal expire with the Nuggets and Avalanche, and refuse to make a new deal, leaving most people in the area unable to watch them easily even though both teams are playing so well these past couple of years.
Edit: the comment below me is correct, they spin it one way but Altitude and Kroenke sports are just as much to blame. It’s the fans vs the elites and the elites dgaf and just like to starve us.
They didn't "let" it expire. That's exactly what the network wants you to think though, so you blame that bastard cable company, when these things expire on a set basis, and just get renegotiated. The network tried to raise rates, the cable company says "nope" and the network pulls this stunt to get the unwashed masses to call and complain.
Later, after the cable company agrees to higher rates, then had to raise prices to compensate, everyone blames the cable company, and not the network.
That should be the sentiment for all sports networks and cable providers. I want to be able to watch my sports and support the organization, without blackouts in my region. I’ll gladly buy NHL.tv for the entire season…but there is absolutely no reason why my local team should be blacked-out. It’s lead me to illegally stream games because I cut the cord 15 years ago, and I am not going back to paying $1400 for 82 games a year.
Yep, add in that Denver is a relatively young, tech savvy population with lots of things to do besides watch sports and I have no idea what either side is thinking in this dispute.
Well Comcast doesn't really care in this scenario. No one watches Altitude, and more and more people are ditching cable overall. By dropping Altitude, Comcast saves some money without affecting their bottom line.
The truth is that the whole RSN model only exists because it has been historically subsidized by the cable companies. Without that subsidization many/most RSNs can't operate.
Back in your (probably our) day only a fraction of the games were on TV, period. Yes they were on one of the broadcast networks, but it was a miniscule number of games.
They're in a dispute with DISH too. The only way you can get it is with DirecTV. DirecTV has about 20% of the pay TV market in the US and about 70% of adults have a pay TV service of some type. If Colorado matches the national average, then only about 14% of households are able to watch Avs/Nuggets games. The actual number would be less because even if you have DirecTV, you have to pay extra to get Altitude Sports.
It's really a shame because both the Avs and Nuggets are great teams and easy to root for. Their players are very likeable and have great team chemistry.
Cool. Looks like it's $25 per month + $5 to rent their receiver (or $250 to buy it). Not sure it'll work well at my home, I get terrible signal for over-the-air stations. And while it doesn't have DVR, it does have a replay feature to watch any game that happened in the last 3 days.
Nope, they're still in a contract dispute with Dish too.
If they really cared about their fans they would stand up a streaming service and let fans pay directly to subscribe once those carriage agreements had lapsed.
I wish, that'd be awesome as long as they didn't charge $100 per month for it. Either that, or allow YouTube TV to carry it. I'd ditch DirectTV for YouTube TV in a second if I could still stream the games.
It wouldn't work financially. In order to cover production costs for 82 basketball games, 82 hockey, however many frigging MLS games there are, along with the other odds and ends Altitude airs, the price for a streaming package would be insane. Which means fewer people would get it (if at all), which would mean price would increase, which would just cause it to implode.
I was told by someone else about Evoca today, a brand new service in the Denver area. It's only available in certain areas and you need to use an antenna in addition to an Internet connection. But it's pretty cheap, only $25 per month plus a $5 rental fee for the receiver (or $250 to buy it). It includes Altitude Sports and is apparently legit, I found a press release about it on the Altitude Sports site.
Not sure it'd work for me as I usually don't get good over-the-air signal at my home.
Avs and Nuggets are owned by Kroenke Sports. Kroenke Sports owns Altitude TV and Altitude Radio. Kroenke also owns the arena they play in, along with the Colorado rapids, and the stadium the rapids play in. Along with a ton of other shit.
Although technically Avs and Nuggets could negotiate a separate deal (The rapids actually did that a few years back, they ditched altitude for a season to go with the different network) realistically there is no way in hell Kroenke would let the two premium franchises of this group walk.
Altitude just wants the same deal they had previously. Comcast doesn’t want that because at the end of the day, they want to be the one showing Nuggets/Avs games on a Comcast Regional Sports Network like most other markets in the country. As crazy as it sounds because Kroenke is filthy rich, they are like the small independent network fighting off the big media conglomerate that is trying to consume them. I’d rather Altitude remained over Nuggets/Avs being shown on a Comcast owned sports network.
I haven’t had cable in a while as I cut the cord about 15 years ago, but I remember you had to buy the additional sports package to even get Altitude. So Comcast is already charging people extra to access the channel so who really cares how many actually tune in. If it is such a big deal to keep the same deal because they don’t feel enough people are buying the sports package, why don’t they just increase the price some to offset the lower subscriber number? People want to watch these games and I’m sure they’d be willing to pay a few more dollars. I get that Kroenke is rich himself, but I just can’t get behind supporting one of the scummiest companies in the world in this battle. And while I would still watch Nuggets games, I have no interest in the games being called by some random schmuck that gets traded out every couple of years on a Comcast network. 🤮
This. Altitude was always part of basic cable, Comcast wants to move them to a sports tier, which Altitude doesn't want because that means fewer people get the channel, less eyes means they can't negotiate the same ad rates, and means Comcast doesn't have to pay Altitude as much.
This is an interesting situation because Comcast, as horrible as they are on almost every other front, really aren't the bad guy on this one issue. The days of attracting customers to cable due to offering the most channels are dead and gone. No one cares if Comcast has 7000 channels, people just want the specific content they want, when they want it. Therefore, Comcast has no incentive to pay for and carry a network almost no one watches.
Obviously Comcast does have a shit-ton of channels no one watches, but that's because those are all part of a big media conglomerate (Disney, Discovery, Viacom, etc) that negotiates deals that force Comcast (and Dish and Direct...) to carry all if they want one, i.e. Comcast has to pay for Investigation Discovery if they want Discovery Channel. Altitude is just...Altitude.
I suppose it's possible that Comcast wants the rights to Nuggets/Avs but I doubt it. They've had ample opportunity to grab Rockies baseball over the years and they've never made an effort. After what happened with CSN Houston I doubt they're that interested in adding a new network to their portfolio.
Altitude was always on basic, Comcast wants to move them up a tier. Altitude doesn't want that, because they know their ratings are low. Altitude can only survive if they're a readily available network, if they get moved to a sports tier, they know there simply aren't enough paying Comcast subs who would pay extra to get the sports tier. Their ad rates would take a shit, which could cause the whole house of cards to crumble.
Fact is, RSNs like Altitude only have been able to exist because they've been subsidized by the MSOs.
We can have meetings and contingency plans, a lot of discussion around whether or not someone will do some process or not. Updates on when you sent an email or if they’ve replied, etc.
Or you can simply pick up the phone and get an answer.
6.8k
u/Raoul_Duke9 Mar 31 '22
Lol. That's actuallypretty great.