Cable fables
Cablevision takes conflicting negotiation tactics
NOT ON OUR SCREEN: Cablevision customers were unable to watch, among other programming, Sunday’s Giants-Lions game on Fox due to contentious contract negotiations between the cable provider, owned by James Dolan (inset), and the network.N.Y. Post photo composite: Getty Images; Anthony J. Causi (inset)
IF CONSISTENCY is the mark of greatness, we must support Cablevision in its head-on battle with Fox. After all, in the 28 years of covering dozens of such conflicts, no one has ever caught Cablevision in a truth.
Now it turns out that what Cablevision is insisting upon here — binding arbitration with Fox — is the opposite of what it’s arguing elsewhere. While standard cable subscribers are missing NFL — including last week’s Giants-Lions game — and postseason MLB telecasts, Cablevision is involved in another anti-competitive clash with a satellite deliverer. Dish Network, on Oct. 1, lost all MSG Network (Cablevision) programming — including Knicks, Rangers, Devils, Islanders, et. al.
In that one, Cablevision, because it owns the programming, didn’t insist on binding arbitration but on continued negotiation. Of course it did.
When you own cable systems and programming — a per se, outrageous conflict of interest that Cablevision has milked for 30 years — you squeeze that monopoly nozzle for every dime it’s worth. And you don’t allow an independent and presumably fair-minded arbiter to make **** any **** call.
In the Fox hassle, Dolanvision has dusted off a different blueprint — demanding a better deal than other cable operators. Thus, there’s little risk and a lot of advantage in binding arbitration, especially if the arbiter sees this as a stand-alone case.
Yet, for all Cablevision’s “we’re protect our customers” brinksmanship, its subscribers/victims have paid the nation’s highest monthly cable fees.When Cablevision drops programming — Yankee games on YES for an entire season, for example — it claims that such programming is too expensive. But Cablevision subscribers never have had their bills reduced following the loss of “too expensive” goods. The savings always are passed along to . . . Cablevision.
Meanwhile, Cablevision’s simplistic misinformation campaigns are designed to stir visceral juices: “We good. They bad.” Not that most of its no-options customers need reminding, but if Cablevision were any more “consumer friendly” they’d be charged to blink.
Some gridiron gurus can’t get concussion problem through their head
A Rutgers player lies in a hospital after being paralyzed after a head-first play Saturday. Sunday, the NFL is again overwhelmed by concussions, especially among QBs. Monday, Tony Siragusa and WFAN co-host Anita Marks swap verbal high-fives about the Giants’ “killer defense” and how it already has “taken out” four QBs. Yeah!
Same matter: WFAN/MSG’s Craig Carton has his sensitive side. Thursday he took a swing at SNY for insensitivity in replaying Saturday’s Rutgers game, including the play that paralyzed Eric LeGrand. Bad guess. SNY removed that entire episode.
Then there was ESPN anchor, Robert Flores — who interviewed Bill Parise, agent for Steelers head-hunter James Harrison. As clips aired of Harrison, at top speed, smashing two defenseless Browns in the head and into brain injuries — video shown before and during Parise’s presence — the agent said this of his client:
“He’s a linebacker. He’s supposed to tackle people, and when he does he gets a $75,000 fine.”
Bunk. Those weren’t tackles, those were assaults, rulebook-illegal, regardless of whether Harrison was flagged. Both were anti-personnel attacks, designed to maim, to separate the man from the ball by separating him from his sense. But Flores didn’t challenge a word Parise said.
Wednesday, however, ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit, on ESPN’s “Mike and Mike,” won the week. After Jon Gruden excused football as, hey, it’s football, Herbstreit said that tackling has been replaced by excessive, conditioned brutality. And, “We at ESPN are as guilty as anyone” of promoting such indefensible violence as sport. Surely, these were Herbstreit’s boldest and perhaps finest moments with ESPN.
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So you’re out of work or sweatin’ bills when Tim McCarver hits you with this: “Of all the bargains on both teams, [Phils’ catcher] Carlos Ruiz may be the biggest, making a little under $3 million a year.” Nurse!
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With all the investigations the NFL claims to be conducting, how many investigators does it have? Brings to mind Don King. Asked to respond to the allegations, he said, “Allegations? I don’t even know the alligators.”
MLB gives ump boot in playoffs
JOE West was good enoughto ump last year’s World Series, but this year, after speaking an indisputable truth — games have become interminable — Cowboy Joe is out, not good enough for even a division series. Reprimanded by MLB for what he said in April, West apparently was offered a press box-level observer’s role, but declined.
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Speaking of Fox vs. Cablevision, when will Mike “Front Row” Francesa learn not to holler his expertise about issues he knows nothing about? He should stick to those things he knows, baseball, for example. He insisted — guaranteed — that if the Yankees lost Game 3 to Texas, CC Sabathia, not A.J. Burnett, would start Game 4.Still, we enjoyed Fran-say-so’s latest chat with “Cash” on how they should handle “Grandy” and “Gardy.” Imagine, Fran-sayso scolds WFANers for failure to practice fundamental journalism.
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How long does one have to cover baseball before he/she understands that it’s neither chemistry nor psychiatry, that all games start 0-0, that the worst teams often beat the best? For Michael Kay to have declared that “This series is over!” after the Yankees’ Game 1 comeback win against Texas may have grabbed him some attention, but the wrong kind.
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Should the World Series be Giants-Rangers, it will be the NL’s second-best record vs. the AL’s fourth. The Rangers were tied for the eighth best record in the majors.
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Based on the claims made by an agent in Sports Illustrated, ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. is so coopted that he has made a mockery of mock drafts.