Got those cable blues again: Comcast-MSG squabble means no Mets games for local viewers
The major cable television conglomerate, Comcast, which provides service for a lot of Hudson County residents, including all of Jersey City, has a catchy slogan: "Comcast: It’s What You Want."
Sorry; it’s not what I want, not if they’re going to continue to deceive their customers by not providing Mets telecasts – games that are promised as part of the premium package price that customers are forced to pay to receive the games.
Last Monday night, I was all set to settle into my living room in Kearny to watch the Mets play the Giants in the new Pac Bell Park in San Francisco. I was psyched. After all, it was the first time I was getting the chance to see the new park for an entire game. And at 10 p.m. on a Monday, I could unwind from my ridiculously hectic schedule and watch my beloved Mets.
It even appeared listed on the TV Guide Network channels that the Mets were set to face the Giants at 10 p.m. on Fox Sports New York, a service that I have to pay Comcast nearly $28 per month to receive.
Why so much? Well, Comcast has a scam – er, I mean deal – that in order to receive the Fox Sports New York (formerly known as SportsChannel) package, I also have to get The Disney Channel and Turner Classic Movies. One cannot come with the other. Comcast calls it "the enchantment package." Yeah, real enchanting. I don’t want Tinker Bell, Mary Poppins and some old Clark Gable flick. I want to see Mike Piazza swing the bat.
But, to get one, I have to buy all three. So, I sucked it up and bought the ever-so-enchanting trifecta for $27.75 per month.
However, I figured it was worth it, because I’m getting what I want. And it’s not the latest Britney Spears concert. I’m getting Mets baseball, which I live, eat, drink, breathe, for seven months of the year.
So, there we have it. Twenty-eight bucks for the three or four Mets games that I can actually have time to see. Robbery? Perhaps. But I had no choice.
Last Monday night represented one of those times. However, to my dismay and complete chagrin, I turned my television to Channel 83 and I got some stupid sports game show and a bad SportsCenter clone. And no Mets. Needless to say, after all the troubles I’ve endured as a customer of Comshaft – the name that the group should go by – I was a tad perturbed. The call went out to the customer service department of Comcast of the Meadowlands.
"The game is being blacked out," the annoying woman said. "Live with it."
Excuse me? Live with it? Did she have any idea who she was talking to? I’m not the average mo-mo. I’m King Mo-Mo when it comes to getting shortchanged by my wondrous cable service.
I felt a column coming on.
All ears
After listening to the game on the radio – a game that the Mets lost, 10-3, to compound the agony – I put a call out to Comcast vice-president and spokesman Bob Smith, a man with whom I’ve had several heated, but informative, conversations in the past.
Smith tried valiantly to shed a little light on the ridiculous situation, which appears to be nothing more than a silly game of tug-of-war between two mega-million dollar cable conglomerates.
Apparently, MSG Network, which now holds all the cable rights to seven New York metropolitan teams (Mets, Yankees, Knicks, Rangers, Devils, Islanders, Nets), told Comcast that in order to televise the Mets games, then Comcast has to carry all three of Metro Guide’s channels: Metro Traffic, Metro Guide and Metro New York.
With the busy schedule caused by playoff action and what have you, MSG is now bouncing games that are not part of the Fox Sports New York package over to the Metro Guide channel, which is televised by Cablevision systems throughout Hudson County, like Hoboken, but not Comcast.
And Comcast is not about to put Metro Guide on its systems.
So the power struggle between MSG and Comcast leads to no Met games on those selected dates. There have been three such dates already this season – with more on the horizon.
In fact, the Mets will play the Giants soon after I’m done writing this – yes, on the Metro Guide channel, bringing the total amount of games lost to Comcast subscribers to four.
Smith points the finger directly in the direction of Cablevision and MSG.
"The environment of having more games than the network can handle has existed for a long time and whenever that happened in the past, the games were made available to us via satellite and we just put them on another channel," Smith said. "So much so that they began to have names, like MSG II and MSG III and SportsChannel Plus. Those names weren’t real channels. It was done for instances like this. Over the years, it became routine."
Smith added, "But now, those games are not being made available to us at all, because we won’t subscribe to the Metro channel, which we feel doesn’t serve the interests of our customers. And we can’t just cherry-pick the Met games. In order to get the games, we have to carry all three channels. And we’re not going to do that."
So, once again, the Comshaft subscriber gets the shaft. We’re promised games that we don’t receive. And we received no notice of a change of service, nor any decrease in the cost of the service. Sounds like theft by deception to me.
"I can certainly understand the customer’s frustration," Smith said. "I’m a consumer myself and I wouldn’t like it. The customers have every right to be upset. But we’re not the ones doing the deceiving. MSG is the one."
I called the powers that be at MSG Network. An unnamed spokesman told me that, "Comcast had a chance to give its subscribers the Mets telecasts and chose not accept the terms of that opportunity. You have to take up the issue with Comcast. The ball is in their court."
There we go. A tennis match. Volley the blame back and forth until someone steps forward to accept it. In the meantime, we still don’t have the Mets games on television. All Yankee games are televised as part of every basic cable system in New Jersey. Not the Mets. Second-class citizens indeed.
I have some serious problems with all of this. For one, why weren’t customers notified about the change? Gee, if it was kept quiet, maybe no one would notice? That’s baloney.
"We’re only notifying the customers if we felt we’ve done something wrong," Smith said. "MSG made the decision. We didn’t."
As for the laughable thought of a possible refund, Smith admitted that it wouldn’t happen.
So, basically, I’m paying nearly $28 a month for nothing. Not a bad scam.
"We don’t like the situation either," Smith said. "Withholding the popular channels for a lesser product. We don’t like that tactic at all, forcing Metro down our throats. But they haven’t budged in any way, shape or form, and neither are we."
Smith said that he hoped that MSG would lighten its stance and see the light.
"If they make those overflow games available to us, then we will make sure that we air them," Smith said. "In this business, you never say never. I won’t rule out anything. We ought to be able to work something out."
Trouble is, it sure doesn’t look that way. It looks like one huge robbery
I guess it’s time to pull out that old transistor and listen to the dulcet tones of Bob Murphy calling the games. Right now, there isn’t another option – except for the realization that I’m getting the shaft from Comshaft once again.
Maybe I can watch "Honey, I Shrunk The Cable Bill" on Disney, while I’m listening to the Mets on the radio. Hey, I’m paying for it, aren’t I?