Manhattan residents won’t be getting access to the NFL Network this season after all.
The NFL and Time Warner Cable, in advanced talks over a carriage agreement last month, have broken off negotiations after a recent “contentious meeting.”
With the breakdown in talks — not the first between the two parties — an agreement this season is unlikely, according to a published report. No new meetings are scheduled.
“We regret that we were unable to reach a deal with Time Warner, especially for the millions of fans in New York,” the NFL Network said in a statement. “Among the top 5 distributors in the country, Time Warner is the only one not carrying NFL Network and NFL RedZone.”
A TWC spokesperson had no comment.
News of a breakdown in the talks was first published by Sports Business Daily.
On Sept. 23, The Post reported that the negotiations were making headway as Glenn Britt’s TWC had agreed to putting the network on a basic digital tier, rather than a higher-priced sports tier package.
The two sides were also close on price, it was reported in these pages.
The NFL Network commands around 81 cents per household per month, according to SNL Kagan.
NFL Network, which carries Thursday games, is in 57 million homes, and signed an agreement with cable operator Charter Communications in August. It is also carried on Verizon Fios but not on Cablevision, which has balked at least in part because NFL sells its “Sunday Ticket” package exclusively to DirecTV.
Meanwhile, TWC, which counts 12.1 million subscribers, has been expanding its ESPN-less packages to several of its territories up and down the East Coast in order to see what demand there is for cheaper cable TV.
The package called, TV Essentials, doesn’t offer ESPN and is said to be priced at between $30-$40 a month, about half the cost of a regular TV package. TWC has seen subscriber defections of late but is expected to report third-quarter results that show cord-cutting slowing.
Third-quarter results generally sees additions as students head off to college.