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Rangers/KTXA

txchipk

txchipk

Barry Horn's column in the DMN had a brief blurb that the Rangers will air 25 Friday night games on KTXA starting next year:

"The Rangers will have 25 Friday night games televised over the air next season on KTXA (Ch. 21). Apparently, the Rangers were not happy that Fox allocated 133 games this season to cable's Fox Sports Southwest and only 24 to KDFI (Ch. 27)."

As usual, the reporting is a little shallow. I had thought Hicks had a long-term broadcast deal that still had some years on it with Fox (FS Southwest and the local Fox O&Os KDFI 27/KDFW 4) for the local rights to the Rangers and Stars.

So...
(1) From the article, if the Rangers were unhappy to have 24 games over-the-air on KDFI, if the games are moving from KDFI to KTXA, how is 25 games over-the-air much of an improvement? Or are KDFI and KTXA each going to carry some broadcast games, which seems kind of confusing?

(2) Over the last couple of seasons, the amount of games allocated between FSSW and KDFI has been shifting more and more to FSS. This season, every Rangers game in July and August will be on FSSW and none on KDFI. The Stars' last season likewise had shifted the balance to more games on FSSW and less on KDFI. Is the current contract set up for seperate over-the-air and cable rights (sort of like the Mavs with CBS-owned KTXA and Fox-owned FSSW) and it just so happens Fox has both? If so, is there some escape clause allowing them to move the games to KTXA, if they are moving from KDFI?


Since most markets have lost the local teams to cable exclusively, it is nice we still get some games over-the-air since the market still has a pretty high rate of people that don't opt for cable or satellite. Stars (KDFI), Ducks (KDOC), Coyotes (KAZT), Blues (KPLR), Flyers (WPSG), and Blackhawks (WGN) are the only NHL teams that have some games over-the-air (the NY Rangers offer one or two games each season locally -- this season on WPIX). The rest of the league has cable-only contracts. Likewise, a whole lot of NBA teams are cable-only (Celtics, Heat, Nets, Knicks, Bobcats, Hornets, etc.).

The sports nets have been able to pay more for the rights due to the additiona revenue from fees they collect for carriage on cable/satellite. I wonder now that local TV stations are starting to win compensation from carriage on some cable systems and the satellite services, if local TV stations might return as players for sports contacts. The Blackhawks on WGN/9 Chicago was a fairly recent return to over-the-air TV (previously the games were either not on TV at all or on cable). In a world where local TV is becoming more and more invisible and less of a destination, at least this would be some unique content within the market to make a local station standout a little...
 
txchipk said:
Barry Horn's column in the DMN had a brief blurb that the Rangers will air 25 Friday night games on KTXA starting next year:

"The Rangers will have 25 Friday night games televised over the air next season on KTXA (Ch. 21). Apparently, the Rangers were not happy that Fox allocated 133 games this season to cable's Fox Sports Southwest and only 24 to KDFI (Ch. 27)."

As usual, the reporting is a little shallow. I had thought Hicks had a long-term broadcast deal that still had some years on it with Fox (FS Southwest and the local Fox O&Os KDFI 27/KDFW 4) for the local rights to the Rangers and Stars.

So...
(1) From the article, if the Rangers were unhappy to have 24 games over-the-air on KDFI, if the games are moving from KDFI to KTXA, how is 25 games over-the-air much of an improvement? Or are KDFI and KTXA each going to carry some broadcast games, which seems kind of confusing?

(2) Over the last couple of seasons, the amount of games allocated between FSSW and KDFI has been shifting more and more to FSS. This season, every Rangers game in July and August will be on FSSW and none on KDFI. The Stars' last season likewise had shifted the balance to more games on FSSW and less on KDFI. Is the current contract set up for seperate over-the-air and cable rights (sort of like the Mavs with CBS-owned KTXA and Fox-owned FSSW) and it just so happens Fox has both? If so, is there some escape clause allowing them to move the games to KTXA, if they are moving from KDFI?


Since most markets have lost the local teams to cable exclusively, it is nice we still get some games over-the-air since the market still has a pretty high rate of people that don't opt for cable or satellite. Stars (KDFI), Ducks (KDOC), Coyotes (KAZT), Blues (KPLR), Flyers (WPSG), and Blackhawks (WGN) are the only NHL teams that have some games over-the-air (the NY Rangers offer one or two games each season locally -- this season on WPIX). The rest of the league has cable-only contracts. Likewise, a whole lot of NBA teams are cable-only (Celtics, Heat, Nets, Knicks, Bobcats, Hornets, etc.).

The sports nets have been able to pay more for the rights due to the additiona revenue from fees they collect for carriage on cable/satellite. I wonder now that local TV stations are starting to win compensation from carriage on some cable systems and the satellite services, if local TV stations might return as players for sports contacts. The Blackhawks on WGN/9 Chicago was a fairly recent return to over-the-air TV (previously the games were either not on TV at all or on cable). In a world where local TV is becoming more and more invisible and less of a destination, at least this would be some unique content within the market to make a local station standout a little...
Click to expand...


What the Mavericks have is a similar arrangement that KTCK had with the Cowboys. The Mavericks produce the games and sell the majority of the air time during the broadcasts on TXA21 and FSSW. From what I remember they have done this since Norm Sonju was the GM.

This agreement with TXA21 seems strange to me as well. A reason could be that Fox is trying to get more stations to clear all of the MyNetwork programming and interrupting that with sports was killing that opportunity.

When I worked for the Rangers, I invoiced KDFW/KDFI seperately from FSSW, but when we received the payment, it was on one check from Fox Television group. So yes there were seperate rights fees invoices. The trend to move more games from over the air to cable/satellite could be any lost revenue would be made up in subscriber fees. I remember the invoice for the OTA fees was at least 2 million dollars more than the cable fees.

In the past the Rangers had about 75 OTA games on KDFI, 5-6 games on KDFW(Local Fox), 75-80 games on FSSW and the rest split between ESPN and Fox(National Fox).
 
Moving the games from OTA to cable / sat only, is a very bad idea. Not everyone can afford such services, especially in this economy. This is a lose-lose deal.
 
Its not necessarily a lose-lose proposition from a fan's standpoint. If you live technically out of market (Lubbock/Amarillo) you can view Rangers/Mavs games on FSSW and obviously not on the local channels (27/21), however if you purchase the "MLB Package" from the Sat or Cable providers the folks in the Lubbock/Amarillo area are considered the DFW Market and games are blacked out. So Games on FSSW is a Godsend when your a Rangers/Mavs fan going to college in the Panhandle (I don't know what its like in other parts of the state, just speaking from experience)
 
scrtr84 said:
Moving the games from OTA to cable / sat only, is a very bad idea. Not everyone can afford such services, especially in this economy. This is a lose-lose deal.
Click to expand...

Yeah like the Cowboy games that are only on the NFL Network.
 
tex192 said:
Its not necessarily a lose-lose proposition from a fan's standpoint. If you live technically out of market (Lubbock/Amarillo) you can view Rangers/Mavs games on FSSW and obviously not on the local channels (27/21), however if you purchase the "MLB Package" from the Sat or Cable providers the folks in the Lubbock/Amarillo area are considered the DFW Market and games are blacked out. So Games on FSSW is a Godsend when your a Rangers/Mavs fan going to college in the Panhandle (I don't know what its like in other parts of the state, just speaking from experience)
Click to expand...

Valid points, but what I was saying is that to restrict the coverage to subscription services with zero OTA coverage, is lose-lose. There's no reason why they can't be on both OTA and cable / sat, but limiting it to one or the other is not good from the fan's standpoint.
 
It sucks when they are on a cable-only channel (like NFL Network for Cowboys.) I don't subscribe so I have to find a restaurant bar that has it. Guess they get a nice bump in revenue.

You should at least get to see your local teams on a local channel. Especially since we have HD with multiple streams. Just move the Andy Griffith reruns on the lower bit stream so the games will be sharp.
 
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